Now way down in a working town Where the boys you might find Some happy and some sad And some drunk all around The breeze is blowin' em up home The door is shakin' in the wind And that's when the boys will sing The rose of Erin Well, she waited for the new railroad Rolling right to get into town You could see she was ready for the show When she came waltzing down Who's that singing in the alley? I stepping all across the floor She became a new sensation Everybody screamed for more With teardrops on the bone She drinks from the mountain stream They say it was the nightingale That gave her the voice to sing Now she burned all the flowers at her door Sent by gangsters and candidates How many thought she was living with the lord Kept her picture like a saint 'Til one winter night in Chicago In a cheap Caymon saloon She blew a model hole in her love And blasted away from the room The door handle revolver Was found lying in the snow When she left one daughter In a bag of Cali gold She must have lost herself in New Orleans And cleared the light of Japanese Oh, the world is teeming down in old Hong Kong And the drifters leaped across the China Sea Let the breeze blowin' 'em up home And the door's a shakin' in the wind Now that's when the boys will sing To the rose of Erin When it's late at night To the rose of Erin When it's really late at night To the rose of Erin