Chord Req: The Stable Lad (Cobb and Co.)

Subject: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:40 AM

Does anyone have some working chords for this fine tune? I have it a Gordon Bok cd and it is just as heart breaking a tune as Reedy River.

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Stewie
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 05:47 PM

Don

It is a poem by Peter Cape to which Phil Garland set a tune. I believe it is in Phil's songbook 'The Singing Kiwi' which presumably has music:

'The Singing Kiwi'
Willie Wag Productions 1996
ISBN 0-646-28410-X

Mudcatter Uke indicated in another thread that he has a copy of this book. Send him/her a PM.

Alternatively, you could contact Phil directly. I contacted him recently re another matter and he was most obliging:

[e-mail]

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: GUEST,Kiwi guest Murray
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 12:42 AM

I have played and sung it for many years, I used to use a guitar but now prefer to use an accordian. I assume that you have the words so I'll put my chords for the first verse. if you want more email me at [e-mail]

    C                                                G7
When Cobb and Co ran coaches, from the Buller to the Grey
G7                                                    C
I worked as a livery stable lad, in a halt up Westport way
      C                  G7                  C       Am
And I gave me heart to a red head girl,and I left it where she
G7
lay
       F                C                G7            C
On the winding Westland highway, from the Buller to the Grey.



If the chords seem quite simple then that's the way I play.
To me the words are the most important. Hope I have been of help and that you enjoy singing this rather beautiful Kiwi song.
Regards Murray Kilpatrick.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 04:32 AM

The chords used by Phil are quite different from Murray's.
      G                                              Am
When Cobb and Co. ran coaches from the Buller to the Grey
   D                                                 G
I went for a livery stable lad in 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
On the winding Westland highway from the Buller to the Grey.

The whole song is already here - I'll try a blue clicky....

thread.cfm?threadid=48145#721332

Robyn

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 04:42 AM

Oops! The chords have jumped off the words I put them on!
The first G should be above 'Cobb', Am should be above 'Grey', the D is OK but the next G should be above 'way'. The 2nd Am should be above 'red', G above 'left' and 3rd Am above 'lay'. C is above 'winding', G above 'highway', D above 'Buller' and the final G above 'Grey'.
Robyn

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: THE STABLE LAD (Cape/Garland)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 23 Apr 04 - 11:22 PM

here is the whole song. Thanks, everyone.

Don


THE STABLE LAD
w. Peter Cape, m. Phil Garland 1975

When (G)Cobb & Co ran coaches from the Buller to(Am) the Grey
I (D)went for a livery-stable lad in a halt up Westport w(G)ay,
And I gave my heart to a r(AM)ed-haired girl, and le(G)ft it where she l(AM)ay
By the w(C)inding Westland h(G)ighway from the B(D)uller to the G(G)rey.

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 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 and everything they seemed to say
The day I rode with Cobb & Co from 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 very hard she'll hear it far away
In the roaring European that 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 Seas,
And it's there they laid my red-haired girl, in a pit of yellow clay
As Cobb & Co went rolling by from Buller to the Grey.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: LindsayInWales
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 07:53 PM

This is an entirely differet version to the one I have on cd, entitled "The Ballad of Cobb and Co" - by Lionel Long, the stage coaches of Cobb and Co in Australia were long established before the yanks got hold of them...

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 09:07 PM

I believe they are two entirely different songs. I found this one at a site for New Zeeland songs and musicians.

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Hrothgar
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 09:54 PM

Two other Cobb & Co threads:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=67729#1150658

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=48145#723177

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 10:01 AM

G'day Don Meixner,

When I first saw this thread, I thought the order of the verses was odd ... not, presumably from my very distant memory of the song (I only remembered vaguely ... from the Buller to the Grey ...) but from the sense of the song.

Since then my copy of An Ordinary Joker - the life and songs of Peter Cape has arrived and this song is on p. 76. The Chords (in the key of G) are essentially as you quote - but the first verse is the one starting: "I've neatsfoot on my fingers ..." and the verse starting: "When Cobb & Co ran coaches ..." (and referring to the death of his girl) comes, as it seemed logical, last.

I wonder how this verse promoted itself, at the expense of the logical and order of the song ... ?

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 04:00 PM

Ask Phil Garland - for many years he was the only one who sang it and I'm fairly sure he always started with the Cobb and Co verse. You could repeat it at the end as well, if you wanted to drag it out a bit. I think some singers have done that.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 07:31 PM

G'day Little Robyn,

I might get the chance to ask Phil Garland ... I think he is making another attempt to tour in Australia (after a number of last-minute cancellations sank his visit in 2003). Roger Steele, who wrote An Ordinary Joker is also a possibilty ... I ended up buying the book directly from him, after the suggested Australian stockist did not carry the book.

It may well be that Roger has restored Peter's original verse order, whilst printing Phil's tune ... as I said, the order of Don's posting jarred with me, because of the illogical way that the verse sung first "telegraphed" the death of the Stable Lad's girl - to no dramatic advantage ... and I would not be surprised to see that Peter Cape's original did not take that form.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 10:09 PM

Hi Bob,

You'll have to ask Gordon Bok about this setting for the song because thats the way he recorded it. And as Kiwi tunes are fairly rare in these parts, (Central New York state) thats the onliest way I've ever heard the song.

I must admit the drama of the song does telegraph a little with the first verse as I have found it. But that is also as it is written on an NZ song site I found through a goggle search.

But then.....the way Gordon sings it it starts out with a sense of melancholy and it keeps it tite through the whole song. Anyone else may not have that emotion so well at hand.

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 12:01 AM

G'day Don,

We might have to wait a while to ask Gordon Bok anything, here in the Antipodes ... I understand we were pretty lucky to have him visit last year - I gather he doesn't really think that flying machines are the right way to cross oceans!

Please don't think I having a whinge about your (Gordon's ... maybe even Phil's) choice of verse order - it just struck me, personally, that the verse was a bit early ... then I saw that the song in the Peter Cape book was in the order I would have expected and could not resist commenting. Whatever works for you ... works.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: GUEST,Phil Garland
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:11 PM

G'day Folks,
Thanks for the interest. I had this discussion pointed out to me recently and decided to reply.
The verse starting:- "When Cobb and Co ran coaches.....in Peter Cape's original handwritten text this is the 1st verse and I've sung it that way ever since.
It doesn't bother me that this verse telegraphs anything about the song, in fact I feel it enhances the story line, because once her death is established at the start, you then start looking for how or why she died - which, as in so many classic ballads of course never happens....leaving the listener or reader to use their own imagination.
That's just one of the many reasons why I liked it so much and set it to music. I might add there are a couple more changes to Peter's handwritten text in the version given in "AN ORDINARY JOKER" but that's another story.
As Bob says "whatever works for you is fine."
Cheers
Phil Garland
www.philgarland.co.nz

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:33 PM

G'day Phil,

I had a listen to two different versions of yourself singing this song (a dub of an ABC Folk Program in the late '70s/ early '80s ... and the 2001 recording on the CD accompanying An Ordinary Joker) - and I realise that it actually works quite well. What seemed jarring read as a poetry text becomes just an enigmatic line at the start of the sung version ... then returns with full force at the end.

It's a good song and a good setting - I can see why it has continued to appeal. Interestingly, the words " ... from the Buller to the Grey. " seem to have stuck in my mind for years (decades?) because I would not have listened to the meagre assortment of NZ songs I gleaned from the aforesaid ABC program for many years ... yet they reappeared unbidden when a friend's daughter went off to study jade carving at Greymouth, this year.

Thanks for your response.

BTW: Will we hear you over on this side of the Tasman? I was disappointed when you had to cancel the appearance at Sandra's The Loaded Dog, after other tour spots fell through. It's always good to hear our nearest neighbours - so alike in many respects ... but different in many others!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: GUEST,Phil Garland
Date: 09 May 04 - 06:01 AM

G'day Bob,
Thanks for your kind words.
I will be touring Oz late Aug thru Mid Sept - all is go this time around.
Playing The Loaded Dog on Sat 28 Aug - Hope to see you there.
Take Care
Phil Garland

Subject: RE: Chord Req: The Stable lad ( Cobb and Co.)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 May 04 - 12:07 AM

G'day Phil,

I'll certainly be at The Loaded Dog ... I'm Sandra's "token local" - I walk there from Leichhardt, about 1 kilometre away!

By the way, am I right in remembering that you sang for us at The Bush Music Club ... back in the '80s? I seem to remember scheduling a Kiwi singer, despite the Friday night being the start of Queen's Birthday Weekend (June) ... I promoted it as: "The land of the Long White Cloud meets the Land of the Long Weekend!" ... and we did actually manage a decent turn-out.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: THE STABLE LAD (Cape/Garland)
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 18 Oct 18 - 07:47 PM

This song came roaring back to me this afternoon as I was noodling about with Fare Well To The Gold.  I have a friend who loved the song but thought it needed a verse.  I won't argue whether it needed one or not.  But I'll add Ed's verse in where he now sings it and if any of the original posters are still around I'd love their thoughts.


THE STABLE LAD
w. Peter Cape, m. Phil Garland 1975

When (G)Cobb & Co ran coaches from the Buller to(Am) the Grey
I (D)went for a livery-stable lad in a halt up Westport w(G)ay,
And I gave my heart to a r(AM)ed-haired girl, and le(G)ft it where she l(AM)ay
By the w(C)inding Westland h(G)ighway from the B(D)uller to the G(G)rey.

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 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, and everything they seemed to say
The day I rode with Cobb & Co from 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 very hard she'll hear it far away
In the roaring European that 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.

    But the gold fields not a good place, not safe for life or wealth,
    Thieves will take your money and disease will take your health,
    And so it was with my red haired girl, took to sick and passed away,
    On the winding westland highway between Buller and the 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 Seas,
And it's there they laid my red-haired girl, in a pit of yellow clay
As Cobb & Co went rolling by from Buller to the Grey.


Either with Ed's verse or not I think this is a perfect song.

Don Meixner