The Corries – Hot Asphalt (Guitar)

     Am                             C               G
Good evening all me jolly lads, I'm glad to see you well,

          Am                          G            
If you'll gather all around me boys a story I will tell,

  Am                   C            G
I have a situation and begorrah and begob,

       Am             G              Am
I can whisper all the weekly wage of nineteen bob.

     C                                  C
'Tis twelve months come October since I left me native home,

      Am                            G
After working in Killarney boys tae cut the harvest down.

        Am                       C                 G
Ah, But now I wear a geansai and around me waist a belt.

        Am           G                 Am
I'm the gaffer o'the lads that lay the hot asphelt.

      C                           C
Well, we laid it in a hollows and we laid it in the flat.

          Am                               G
And if it doesn't last forever, well, I'll surely eat me hat,

        Am                         C                 G
Ah, But now I wear the geansai and around me waist a belt.

        Am           G                 Am
I'm the gaffer o'the lads that lay the hot asphelt.

    Am                              C            G
The other day a policeman comes and says to me: "McGuire,

          Am                               G
Would you kindly let me light me pipe doon at your boiler fire?"

     Am                                C                G
And then he stands before it, with his coattails up sae neat,

         Am            G                 Am
And says I: "Me decent man, you'd better go and mind your beat!"

       C                                 C
"Ah well," says he, "I'm down on you I'm up to all yer pranks,

   Am                              G
 I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks?"

       Am                              C               G
then I hit him from the shoulder and I gave him such a belt

         Am            C      G       Am
 That he landed in the boiler full of hot asphelt.

    C                           C
 We laid it in a hollows and we laid it in the flat.

          Am                               G
And if it doesn't last forever, well, I'll surely eat me hat,

        Am                         C                 G
Ah, But now I wear the geansai and around me waist a belt.

        Am           C         G       Am
I'm the gaffer o'the lads that lay the hot asphelt.

   Am                               C                G
We quickly pulled him out again and put him in the tub,

          Am                               G
 And with soap and warm water we began to rub and scrub,

        Am                                   C              G
Ah, but never the de'il the tar came off, he turned hard as stone

         Am              G                  Am
And with every scrape we gave him you could hear the copper groan.

          C                                C
Twixt the rubbin' and the scrubbin' surely caught his death of cold

       Am                      G
So for scientific purposes his body it was sold

       Am                            C              G
In the Kelvingrove Museum boys, he's hangin' in his pelt,

     Am              G            Am
As a monument to the Irish laying hot asphelt.

         C                           C
Well, we laid it in a hollows and we laid it in the flat.

          Am                               G
And if it doesn't last forever, well, I'll surely eat me hat,

        Am                       C                 G
Ah, But now I wear a geansai and around me waist a belt.

         Am                    G             Am
I'm the gaffer o'the lads that lay - - - the hot - as-phelt.