American Old Time Song Lyrics: 56 In The Barroom
Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 56
IN THE BARROOM.
Copyright, MDCCCXCV, by Henry J. Wehman.
Words and Music by Joe J. Casey.
I'm a celebrated workingman, me duty I never shirk;
I can do more work than any man from Pittsburgh to New York;
It's a perfect holy terror, boys, how I'll get through me work,
Providing I can do it in a barroom.
I'll hoist derricks with me shoulder, push freight cars with me breath,
That will make the boss feel tickled, till he's on the edge of death.
But, between us all, now whisper that I only have to sweat,
When I'm doing manual labor in the barroom.
There are coppers without numbers, with their well-developed chests,
Who make the most astounding of the whole police arrests:
They'll pound the air with vengeance, then dilate their manly chests;
If you'll only chase the liquor in a barroom.
They will catch thieves without numbers, they'll be up to snuff, you see;
They've caught a hundred murderers, including you and me,
But you'll find out when you know them that they must have twenty-three
Of the very largest schooners in the barroom.
There are actors who have acted in a hundred different roles,
And some whose fame extend beyond those two confounded poles,
But you'll find their acting qualities lies deep within their souls,
And they draw their inspirations from a barroom.
Tbeir poses are heroic, and their methods are sublime;
They give old Garrick cards and spades, their soul is full of rhyme,
But when you come to solve them you will find that at the time
They only do their John McCullough's in a barroom.
There's the politician robust, with his pre-election ways.
Who works his fine influence on the blooming Fourth Ward jays,
And for fourteen kegs of lager then his nobs he boldly pays,
And he operates his canvass in the barroom;
But when the election's o'er and the free beer is all gone,
He'll wonder how the deuce it was that his opponent won;
He'll find out that I voted for the other son of a gun,
And I often jollied heelers in the barroom.