Also knows as "The Hot Ashfelt" (which is how the Dubliners pronounce it here) or even "Hot Ash-pelt," this is a song about a man who works all day laying down asphalt but also is a freedom fighter ("But now I wear the geansaí and around me waist a belt / I'm the gaffer in the squad that makes the hot asphalt"). The geansai is a sweater that shows him to be a man of some position. One day a policeman comes and interrogates him, and he pushes the copper in the boiler of hot asphalt. They take him out and start to clean him, and then the story gets weirder, as the narrator dies of a cold. The Irish are great ones for mixing the righteously angry and self-deprecating humor, and this song is no exception.
"A great song mutates, makes quantum leaps, turns up again like the prodigal son. It crosses genres. Could be punk rock, ragtime, folk-rock, or zydeco, and can be played in a lot of different styles, multiple styles... A great song is the sum of all things." - Bob Dylan
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