[Verse]
Well, come listen all ye jolly lads, I'm glad to find you well,
And kindly gather round me and a story will tell,
For I've got a situation and begorrah and begob,
I can whisper, "I've a weekly wage of nineteen bob."

It's twelve months from October since I left me native home,
After helping the Killarney boys to bring their harvest home,
But now I wear a gansey and around me waist a belt,
I'm the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot asphalt.

[Chorus]
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat,
And if it doеsn't last forever, sure, I swеar I'll eat me hat,
I've wandered up and down this world, but sure, I never felt,
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt.

[Verse]
Well, the other night, the copper comes and says to me, "McGuire,
Would you kindly let me light me pipe down by your boiler fire?"
He plonks himself right down and puts his hobnails up the grate,
"Here", says I, "Me decent man, you'd better go and mind your bait."

He ups at me and downs at me, "I'm up to all your pranks,
Don't I know yer boiler came up from the Tipperary ranks?"
I hit him on the shoulder and I gave him such a belt,
That I knocked him into the boiler full of the hot asphalt.

[Chorus]
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat,
And if it doesn't last forever, sure, I swear I'll eat me hat,
I've wandered up and down this world, but sure, I never felt,
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt.

[Verse]
Well, we quickly pulled him out again and threw him in the tub,
And with soap and warm water we began to rub and scrub,
But the devil, the thing had hardened and had turned as hard as stone,
And with every other rub, sure, you could hear the copper moan.

"I'm thinking" says O'Reilly, "That he's looking like the old Nick,
And blaze me if I am not inclined to claim him with me pick",
"Ah", says I, "It would be easier to boil him till he melts,
And to stir him nice and easy in the hot asphalt."

[Chorus]
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat,
And if it doesn't last forever, sure, I swear I'll eat me hat,
I've wandered up and down this world, but sure, I never felt,
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt.

[Verse]
You may talk about your sailor lads, your soldiers and the rest,
Your shoemakers and your tailors but we play the ladies best,
There's not a single one of them, that their old hearts can melt,
Yet the lads around the boiler making hot asphalt.

With rubbing and with scrubbing, sure I caught me death of cold,
For scientific purposes, me body it was sold,
In the Kelvin grove museum, me boys, I'm hanging in me pelt,
As a monument to the Irish, making the hot asphalt.

[Chorus]
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat,
And if it doesn't last forever, sure, I swear I'll eat me hat,
I've wandered up and down this world, but sure, I never felt,
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt.