When McGuinness Gets a Job

Last winter was a hard one, Mrs. Reilly did you say,
It is myself that knows it, it is for many a day.
Your husband wasn’t the only to sit behind the wall,
My old man McGuinness couldn’t get a job at all. 

Chorus:
So rise up Mrs. Reilly, don’t give away to blues.
You and I will cut a shine, new bonnets and new shoes.
Hear the young ones cry, neither sigh nor sob,
But times will all get better when McGuinness gets a job.

The politicians promised him work on the boulevard,
To handle pick and shovel and throw dirt in cart.
Six months ago they promised him that work he’d surely get.
Believe me my good woman, they’re promising him yet.

Bad luck to those Italians, why don’t they stay at home.
We’ve plenty of our own trash to eat up all our own.
They come like bees in summertime, swarming here to stay.
Contractors hire them for 40 cents a day.

To work upon the railroad, to shovel snow and slush.
One thing in their favour, Italians don’t get lushed.
They always bring their money home, drink no gin or wine.
That’s one thing I’d like to say for your old man and mine.

Springtime is coming and work he’ll surely get.
McGuinness’ll go back to his old job, he makes a handsome clerk.
See him climb the ladder, nimble as a fox,
Says I’m the boy to handle the old three-corner box.

The boss is always calling out, "Hey there don’t you stop.
Keep both eyes upward, and let no mortar drop."
By my old man is careful, nothing he’ll let fall
Devil a word you’ll hear him say to my old man at all.

Sung with great success by O'Neil and Conroy, according to old New York song sheets,
although I got it from Joe Hickerson, who got it, I believe, from the Abelard Book 
of Folksongs, from the singing of George Edwards.