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Tune Req: Martins and the Coys (Variants)

22 Oct 03 - 03:38 PM (#1039864)
Subject: Tune Req: Martins and the Coys (Variants)
From: Uke

I was wondering does anybody know any variations to this tune from the standard recorded version?

There's a New Zealand song from WW2 that's set to it called "The C.S.R. and the Suva Snobs", but the regular tune doesn't seem to fit. It's about NZ troops being used to guard European sugar plantations in Fiji for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. It was a bit of a scandal at the time as the local Fijians weren't paid very well.

The first couple of verses go:

In Fiji's sunny clime, we were stationed for a time;
We thought that we were guarding home and king,
But imagine our confusion
When we found to our delusion
And we faced the same conclusion
We were doing no such thing.

We were marched and marched and marched, while our b****y throats were parched.
G**d! they slogged us round to bring us up to par.
Struth! you should have heard our curses
On discovering we were nurses
To the Sugar baron's purses
And the b****y C.S.R.


Are there any experts out there who know a variation to fit this - it needs an extra bit for the fifth line.

I can post the rest of the lyrics too if anyone's interested.