Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill" is an American folk song first published in 1888 and attributed to Thomas Casey (words) and much later Charles Connolly (music). The song is a work song, and makes references to the construction of the American railroads in the mid-19th century. The tarriers of the title refers to Irish workers, drilling holes in rock to blast out railroad tunnels. It may mean either to tarry as in delay, or to terrier dogs which dig their quarry out of the ground ^[1]

Lyrics

Every morning about seven o'clock
There's a hundred tarriers a workin at the rock
The boss comes along and he says, "Keep still
And come down heavy on the cast iron drill."

Chorus
And drill, ye tarriers, drill
Drill, ye tarriers, drill
For it's work all day for the sugar in you tay
Down beside the railway
And drill, ye tarriers, drill
And blast, and fire.

The boss was a fine man down to the ground
And he married a lady six feet 'round
She baked good bread and she baked it well
But she baked it harder than the hobs of Hell.

The foreman's name was John McCann
By God, he was a blamed mean man
Last week a premature blast went off
And a mile in the air went big Jim Goff.

And when next payday came around
Jim Goff a dollar short was found
When he asked, "What for?" came this reply
"You were docked for the time you were up in the sky."

Tarriers live on work and sweat
There ain't no tarrier got rich yet
Sleep and work, then work some more
And we'll drill right through to the devil's door."

See also

• The Tarriers

References

1. ^ Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong (1980, 2000) by Norm Cohen, University of Illinois Press, p. 555, ISBN 0252068815

• The Railroads Built America
• Drill Ye Tarriers Drill (lyrics and embedded MIDI tune)