A traditional song that opens Great Big Sea's live album, Road Rage, "Donkey Riding" apparently refers to a donkey engine, used for unloading cargo. ("...a small auxiliary engine not used for propelling, but for pumping water into the boilers, raising heavy weights, and like purposes..." Thanks, Webster 1913!) As with most folk songs there are many variations; here is GBS' version:
CHORUS: Way hey and away we go
Donkey riding, donkey riding
Way hey and away we go
Ridin' on a donkey.
Was you ever in Quebec
Launchin' timber on the deck?
Where ya break yer bleedin' neck
Ridin' on a donkey!
(Chorus)
Was you ever 'round Cape Horn
Where the weather's never warm?
Wished to God you'd never been born
Ridin' on a donkey.
(Chorus)
Was you ever in Miramichi
Where ye tie up to a tree,
An' the girls sit on yer knee?
Ridin' on a donkey
(Chorus)
(instrumental)
Was you ever in Fortune Bay
See the girls all shout, "Hooray!"?
"Here comes dad with ten weeks pay
Riding on a donkey."
(Chorus)
(Chorus) | 
