A very popular New Zealand song. Peter Cape wrote the lyrics, Phil Garland composed the tune
G Am
When Cobb & Co ran coaches from the Buller to the Grey
D G
I went for a livery-stable lad at a halt up Westport way,
Am G Am
And I gave my heart to a red-haired girl, and left it where she lay
C G D G
By the winding Westland highway from the Buller to the Grey.
There's neatsfoot on my fingers,
and lamp-black on my face,
And I've saddle-soaped the harness
and hung each piece in place,
But my heart's not in the stable,
it's in Charleston far away,
Where Cobb & Co goes rolling by
from the Buller to the Grey.
There's a red-haired girl in Charleston,
and she's dancing in the bar,
But I know she's not like other girls
who dance where miners are,
And I can't forget her eyes,
everything they seemed to say
The day I rode with Cobb & Co
from the Buller to the Grey.
There's a schooner down from Murchison,
I can hear it in the gorge,
So I'll have to pump the bellows now
and redden up the forge,
And I'll strike that iron so hard
she'll hear it far away
In the roaring European
where the road runs by from Grey.
Some day I'll be a teamster
with the ribbons in my fist,
And I'll drive that Cobb & Co Express
through rain and snow and mist,
Drive a four-in-hand to Charleston,
and no matter what they say,
I'll take my girl up on the box
and marry her in Grey.
There's a graveyard down in Charleston
where the moss trails from the trees,
And the Westland wind comes moaning in
from off the Tasman Sea.
It was there they laid my red-haired girl,
in a pit of yellow clay
As Cobb & Co went rolling by
from the Buller to the Grey.
(Repeat 1st verse, with melancholy)