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Well, the savage loves his native shore,Sung:
That's what the poet said;
Ah, but Paddy fancies England more,
So he packed his pajamas and fled.
Now, here I am from Paddy's land,
From the land of eggs and bacon;
If you think I'll eat your fish 'n' chips,
By Jeasus, you're mistaken.
But the war came on in thirty-nine,
And the skies were full of lead;
And Hitler was headed for London,
And Paddy for Holyhead.
Come all you pincher laddies,
And all long-distance men;
Don't ever work for McAlpine,
For Wimpey or John Laing.
For he'll stick you behind a mixer,
And he'll work your skin to a tan;
And he'll say, "Get along ya, Paddy,
With your passport in your hand."
For the craic was good down in Cricklewood,
And there was more there down in the Crown;
With glasses flying and biddies crying,
Counters crackin' and bowmen jackin',
The paddies was coming to town.
Oh, Mother dear, I'm over here,
And I'm never going back;
What keeps me here is the price of beer,
The women, and the craic.
And so in the glen came McAlpine's men,
With their shovels slung behind them ;
'Twas in the pub that they drank their sub,
And up in the spike you will find them.
They sweated, by George, and they washed away mud,
With their pints and their quarts of beer;
And now we're on the road again,
With McAlpine's Fusiliers.
I stripped to the skin with the darky, Finn,
Way down upon the Isle of Grain;
With Horseface Toole, well I knew the rule,
No money if you saw a-falling rain.
McAlpine's god was a well-filled hod,
With your shoulders cut to bits and seared;
And woe to he who has to look for tea,
From McAlpine's Fusiliers.
I was there the day that the Bear of O'Shea,
He fell into a concrete stairs;
What Horseface said when he saw him dead,
Well, it wasn't what the rich call prayers.
"I'm a navvy short," was the one retort,
That reached unto my ears;
When the going is rough, by God, you must be tough,
With McAlpine's Fusiliers.
Well, I've worked till the sweat had me hardly be't,
With the Russian, the Czech, and the Pole,
I'm shuttering jambs on the hydro dams,
Or underneath the Thames in a hole.
I blasted it hard and they got me cards,
And a man named Ganger's fist across me ears;
If you pride your life, then don't join, by Christ,
With McAlpine's Fusiliers.
This arrangement recorded by the Sons of Erin, featuring band leader Ralph O'Brien, Johnnie Lynn, "Wee" John Cameron, and Denis Ryan on their self-titled album, Sons Of Erin, ca.1970.
See more songs by Sons of Erin.
Notes:
McAlpine's Fusiliers is a nickname for Irish navvies employed by the British construction firm McAlpine. The song was originally published as Macaldine's Fusiliers to avoid a potential libel lawsuit by the powerful McAlpine firm.
Biddy - ¹ a chick or hen, from the Gaelic bideach, meaning very small; ² a female servant; ³ an elderly, gossipy woman. Both ² and ³ are derived from the common diminutive of the Irish name Bridget.
Cards - to get cards is to be fired. When an employer left a job, he received back his national insurance card with up to date social security stamps, plus a form showing pay and taxes for the year.
Craic - (pronounced: crack) conversation, small talk. chat.
Crown - although a common name of an English public house similar to a bar in America, this usage refers to a specific pub in the Cricklewood district of London, frequented by expatriate Irish.
Holyhead - the largest town on the island of Anglesey in North Wales best known for being a busy ferry port serving routes to and from Ireland.
Isle of Grain - a huge petrochemical complex near Rochester, England.
Jambs - vertical posts or pieces that form the sides of a portal or opening.
Navvy - shorter form of the word 'navigator' used to describe a laborer obliged to do menial work on public civil engineering projects; originally, a laborer on canals for internal navigation.
Shuttering - wooden sides or forms for casting concrete.
