3 March 2025

Mild Monday - "Why Paddy's Not At Work Today"

I wanted something more lighthearted today. Since the next upcoming holiday is St. Patrick’s Day, the choice of something Irish seemed obvious (to me, anyway!).

Source: Image by Greg Reese from Pixabay

Although this song was written in 1969 by an Irish folksinger named Pat Cooksey (born in Limerick in 1945), he himself is not particularly famous. But this humorous song is quite popular, and it has been recorded numerous times under numerous different titles, including by The Dubliners. It combines the plaintive plea of a sick note with a zany Rube-Goldberg-machine accident experienced by an unfortunate (but perhaps not-too-bright) Irish bricklayer.

Interestingly, Cooksey did not make up the story. It was actually based on an anecdote called “The Bricklayer’s Lament” that humorist Gerard Hoffnung recounted during a 1958 speech at the Oxford Union (a debating society at Oxford University). But even Hoffnung did not originate the idea; he got from a newspaper, and it had been passed around and reprinted—including by Reader’s Digest in 1940—with assorted different framing stories since at least the 1930s, and it was told in British music halls before that. One source asserts that it appeared in a joke book in 1918. It seems to be one of those stories that is too funny not to share—an early example of what we now call “going viral.”

My own favorite version (because it introduced me to this song) is by the band Celtic Stone:

Why Paddy’s Not At Work Today (aka The Sick Note)

Dear Boss, I write this note for to tell you of my plight,
And at the time of writing, I am not a pretty sight:
My body is all black and blue, my face a deathly grey,
And I write this note to say why Paddy’s not at work today.

While working on the fourteenth floor, some bricks I had to clear.
For to throw them down from off the top seemed quite a good idea.
But the foreman, he would not agree, he being an awful sod;
He said I’d have to cart them down the ladder in my hod.

Well, clearing all these bricks by hand, it seemed so very slow,
So I hoisted up a barrel and secured the rope below.
But in my haste to do the job, I was too blind to see
That a barrel full of building bricks is heavier than me.

So when I untied the rope, of course, the barrel fell like lead,
And clinging tightly to the rope, I started up instead.
I shot up like a rocket and to my dismay I found
That halfway up I met the bloody barrel coming down.

Well, the barrel broke my shoulder as towards the ground it sped,
And when I reached the top, I banged the pulley with my head.
I clung on tight, though numb with shock from that almighty blow,
While the barrel spilled out half its bricks some fourteen floors below.

Now when the bricks had fallen from the barrel to the floor,
I then outweighed the barrel, so I started down once more.
Still clinging tightly to the rope, I raced towards the ground
And I landed on those broken bricks that lay scattered all around.

Well, as I lay there moaning, sure I thought I’d passed the worst.
But when the barrel hit the top, ’twas then the bottom burst.
A shower of bricks rains on me; I didn’t have a hope.
And in the great confusion, I let go the bloody rope.

Well, the barrel now was heavier, and it started down once more
And it landed right on top of me as I lay there on the floor.
It broke three ribs and my left arm, and I can only say
That I hope you understand why Paddy’s not at work today.

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Thoughts?