Chords for Bob Weir & Phil Lesh discuss "Workingman's Dead" album
Tempo:
55.9 bpm
Chords used:
G
E
D
C
A
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
So getting into the sort of the acoustic era, if you will, what sort of made the influence to do [D] that, the shift from the anthem era to the 40s era?
It must be Stills and [G] Nash.
Number one.
And number two, the new songs that Conan and Jerry had written. Right.
Because the new songs really didn't lend themselves to that.
That falls against the whole psychedelic [Am] range of [Em] treatment.
It also felt a [A] lot easier.
Yeah, that's true.
The songs were easier.
Yeah, the playing [G] of them was easier.
It wasn't such a nightmare electronically.
We were just starting to get a handle on songwriting.
Yeah.
Basically, [A] you know, the song's the [C] song.
The way we [G] came up with songs up to that point, we just, we'd play a little.
Hunter wasn't, you know, Hunter wasn't plugged in that much.
We were [Am] trying every conceivable [Em] way.
Somebody would [C] take a section of a song.
This is it.
Yeah, I got it.
I [Ab] got it.
I [Em] got it.
And it goes like that.
And that's how the songs [G] got written.
Then Jerry and Hunter hooked up and came up with a slug of songs.
And [Am] for the most part, that was looking at it.
[C] And the other thing was that by that time, we had kind of explored that whole [G] seven-headed dragon, come and eat your mind space.
[Dm] And, you know, after [Am] Anthem of the Sun and Life Dead, it was [C] like,
where [G] do you go with this?
Yeah.
What you gonna [D] do now?
It's never gonna be a seven-headed dragon [G] again.
It's gonna be a 49-headed [C] dragon next time, because that's how that goes.
[G] And are we up for that?
Well, Jerry was saying, well, we can just be [B] a normal band, too.
[Bb] [G]
Because that was sort of what the [Gb] Crosby influence and stills and all that.
[G] And the thing is, we could sit around with acoustic guitars and kick stuff back and forth.
[D] And that was [A] delightful.
You know, we were on the road a [E] lot.
We'd sit on the diving board [D] by the swimming pool at the motel.
[G] I remember perfectly well just sitting on the diving board.
We need a bridge here.
[Am] How did you achieve such a [G] dense sound?
Well, Crosby, Stills and Nash had us waybeated that.
[N] They called that stacking.
We called it stacking back then.
[Am] That was the industry trend for it.
But you record [Bm] a chorus, the Eagles were [C] famous for it.
I don't know how many tracks of oohs back there, [Gm] but they turned themselves into a choir.
[G] And you can do that.
You can turn yourself into a choir.
One person could do it with enough [Gm] stacks.
We probably did [Em] it once and then two more times.
Maybe nine [E] tracks.
Everybody doubles themselves.
Everybody doubles themselves.
And you sing the exact same part three [Em] times.
It's a gorille.
Did you know that a song like Casey Jones, for example,
did you have [G] any idea that it would be such a big [C] song?
Casey Jones, for instance, [F] had that hook, you know, driving that train high on cocaine.
You could almost tell [C] that that was going to sink into the collective psyche.
Casey Jones was a cautionary tale.
[F] Yeah, we tried.
We tried [A] to tell people to be careful.
[E] We tried to tell them to just say no.
Then you get the vitamin C part.
The [Am] cheer went up after the first line.
[A] That was that.
[F] How come Mason's children didn't go on record even though it was recorded?
[Em] Something had to go.
There's only so much information you [E] can put on a television disc.
[Ebm] It was either put this one [D] on, which, you know, [F] it was the weakest of the cut.
[E] And suffer.
[Gb] You know, the record will be [B] quieter.
It will have to be quieter.
If the record was quiet, then it came [D] across the radio quiet.
You lost people's attention.
[E] So the idea was to keep the records hot and keep the size as short as you could.
We figured max [C] about 17.
18 minutes a side.
No [Bm] more than 18 minutes.
No more than 18 [D] minutes a side.
We used all the anger come to blows over the outer grooves.
Whose song got the outer grooves?
[E] Because the outer grooves were much hotter and the fidelity was much better.
You get the inner grooves.
You know, vinyl discs are, you know, people worship vinyl discs.
But you get to the inner grooves of vinyl discs.
They don't sound so good.
Graham Nash is really good at explaining all of this stuff.
He had that experience in London and the studio.
[Bb] That's true.
[A] Those guys gave us a lot of fun.
It was a great [D] time too.
The [Gb] European Crossroads [Em] designation.
We did one of the stages overall.
We were [D] on the streets the second [E] time.
We were going across the city.
They had a house with a pool.
And I'll never forget that.
And we had the castle.
Yeah, that's right.
With that big mansion.
Oh, right.
That's right.
Jack Cassidy brought a day in the life.
An ascertaining day in the life.
[D] It was a [E] huge delight in getting in the snow.
Remember the 1968 Northwest Tour?
The one that just came out?
We wouldn't leave until we had that in America.
[A]
[E] It's hard to listen to that one.
[Gm] [A]
It must be Stills and [G] Nash.
Number one.
And number two, the new songs that Conan and Jerry had written. Right.
Because the new songs really didn't lend themselves to that.
That falls against the whole psychedelic [Am] range of [Em] treatment.
It also felt a [A] lot easier.
Yeah, that's true.
The songs were easier.
Yeah, the playing [G] of them was easier.
It wasn't such a nightmare electronically.
We were just starting to get a handle on songwriting.
Yeah.
Basically, [A] you know, the song's the [C] song.
The way we [G] came up with songs up to that point, we just, we'd play a little.
Hunter wasn't, you know, Hunter wasn't plugged in that much.
We were [Am] trying every conceivable [Em] way.
Somebody would [C] take a section of a song.
This is it.
Yeah, I got it.
I [Ab] got it.
I [Em] got it.
And it goes like that.
And that's how the songs [G] got written.
Then Jerry and Hunter hooked up and came up with a slug of songs.
And [Am] for the most part, that was looking at it.
[C] And the other thing was that by that time, we had kind of explored that whole [G] seven-headed dragon, come and eat your mind space.
[Dm] And, you know, after [Am] Anthem of the Sun and Life Dead, it was [C] like,
where [G] do you go with this?
Yeah.
What you gonna [D] do now?
It's never gonna be a seven-headed dragon [G] again.
It's gonna be a 49-headed [C] dragon next time, because that's how that goes.
[G] And are we up for that?
Well, Jerry was saying, well, we can just be [B] a normal band, too.
[Bb] [G]
Because that was sort of what the [Gb] Crosby influence and stills and all that.
[G] And the thing is, we could sit around with acoustic guitars and kick stuff back and forth.
[D] And that was [A] delightful.
You know, we were on the road a [E] lot.
We'd sit on the diving board [D] by the swimming pool at the motel.
[G] I remember perfectly well just sitting on the diving board.
We need a bridge here.
[Am] How did you achieve such a [G] dense sound?
Well, Crosby, Stills and Nash had us waybeated that.
[N] They called that stacking.
We called it stacking back then.
[Am] That was the industry trend for it.
But you record [Bm] a chorus, the Eagles were [C] famous for it.
I don't know how many tracks of oohs back there, [Gm] but they turned themselves into a choir.
[G] And you can do that.
You can turn yourself into a choir.
One person could do it with enough [Gm] stacks.
We probably did [Em] it once and then two more times.
Maybe nine [E] tracks.
Everybody doubles themselves.
Everybody doubles themselves.
And you sing the exact same part three [Em] times.
It's a gorille.
Did you know that a song like Casey Jones, for example,
did you have [G] any idea that it would be such a big [C] song?
Casey Jones, for instance, [F] had that hook, you know, driving that train high on cocaine.
You could almost tell [C] that that was going to sink into the collective psyche.
Casey Jones was a cautionary tale.
[F] Yeah, we tried.
We tried [A] to tell people to be careful.
[E] We tried to tell them to just say no.
Then you get the vitamin C part.
The [Am] cheer went up after the first line.
[A] That was that.
[F] How come Mason's children didn't go on record even though it was recorded?
[Em] Something had to go.
There's only so much information you [E] can put on a television disc.
[Ebm] It was either put this one [D] on, which, you know, [F] it was the weakest of the cut.
[E] And suffer.
[Gb] You know, the record will be [B] quieter.
It will have to be quieter.
If the record was quiet, then it came [D] across the radio quiet.
You lost people's attention.
[E] So the idea was to keep the records hot and keep the size as short as you could.
We figured max [C] about 17.
18 minutes a side.
No [Bm] more than 18 minutes.
No more than 18 [D] minutes a side.
We used all the anger come to blows over the outer grooves.
Whose song got the outer grooves?
[E] Because the outer grooves were much hotter and the fidelity was much better.
You get the inner grooves.
You know, vinyl discs are, you know, people worship vinyl discs.
But you get to the inner grooves of vinyl discs.
They don't sound so good.
Graham Nash is really good at explaining all of this stuff.
He had that experience in London and the studio.
[Bb] That's true.
[A] Those guys gave us a lot of fun.
It was a great [D] time too.
The [Gb] European Crossroads [Em] designation.
We did one of the stages overall.
We were [D] on the streets the second [E] time.
We were going across the city.
They had a house with a pool.
And I'll never forget that.
And we had the castle.
Yeah, that's right.
With that big mansion.
Oh, right.
That's right.
Jack Cassidy brought a day in the life.
An ascertaining day in the life.
[D] It was a [E] huge delight in getting in the snow.
Remember the 1968 Northwest Tour?
The one that just came out?
We wouldn't leave until we had that in America.
[A]
[E] It's hard to listen to that one.
[Gm] [A]
Key:
G
E
D
C
A
G
E
D
So getting into the sort of the acoustic era, if you will, what sort of made the influence to do [D] that, the shift from the anthem era to the 40s era?
It must be Stills and [G] Nash.
Number one.
And number two, the new songs that Conan and Jerry had written. Right.
Because the new songs really didn't lend themselves to that.
That falls against the whole psychedelic [Am] range of [Em] treatment.
It also felt a [A] lot easier.
Yeah, that's true.
The songs were easier.
Yeah, the playing [G] of them was easier.
It wasn't such a nightmare electronically.
We were just starting to get a handle on songwriting.
Yeah.
Basically, [A] you know, the song's the [C] song.
The way we [G] came up with songs up to that point, we just, we'd play a little.
Hunter wasn't, you know, Hunter wasn't plugged in that much.
We were [Am] trying every conceivable [Em] way.
Somebody would [C] take a section of a song.
This is it.
Yeah, I got it.
I [Ab] got it.
I [Em] got it.
And it goes like that.
And that's how the songs [G] got written.
Then Jerry and Hunter hooked up and came up with a slug of songs.
And [Am] for the most part, that was looking at it.
[C] And the other thing was that by that time, we had kind of explored that whole [G] seven-headed dragon, come and eat your mind space.
[Dm] And, you know, after [Am] Anthem of the Sun and Life Dead, it was [C] like,
where [G] do you go with this?
Yeah.
What you gonna [D] do now?
It's never gonna be a seven-headed dragon [G] again.
It's gonna be a 49-headed [C] dragon next time, because that's how that goes.
[G] And are we up for that?
Well, Jerry was saying, well, we can just be [B] a normal band, too.
[Bb] _ [G]
Because that was sort of what the [Gb] Crosby influence and stills and all that.
[G] And the thing is, we could sit around with acoustic guitars and kick stuff back and forth.
[D] And that was [A] delightful.
You know, we were on the road a [E] lot.
We'd sit on the diving board [D] by the swimming pool at the motel.
[G] I remember perfectly well just sitting on the diving board.
We need a bridge here.
_ [Am] How did you achieve such a [G] dense sound?
Well, Crosby, Stills and Nash had us waybeated that.
[N] They called that stacking.
We called it stacking back then.
[Am] That was the industry trend for it.
But you record [Bm] a chorus, the Eagles were [C] famous for it.
I don't know how many tracks of oohs back there, [Gm] but they turned themselves into a choir.
[G] And you can do that.
You can turn yourself into a choir.
One person could do it with enough [Gm] stacks.
We probably did [Em] it once and then two more times.
Maybe nine [E] tracks.
Everybody doubles themselves.
Everybody doubles themselves.
And you sing the exact same part three [Em] times.
It's a gorille.
Did you know that a song like Casey Jones, for example,
did you have [G] any idea that it would be such a big [C] song?
Casey Jones, for instance, [F] had that hook, you know, driving that train high on cocaine.
You could almost tell [C] that that was going to sink into the collective psyche.
Casey Jones was a cautionary tale.
[F] Yeah, we tried.
We tried [A] to tell people to be careful.
[E] We tried to tell them to just say no.
Then you get the vitamin C part.
The [Am] cheer went up after the first line.
[A] That was that.
[F] How come Mason's children didn't go on record even though it was recorded?
[Em] Something had to go.
There's only so much information you [E] can put on a television disc.
[Ebm] It was either put this one [D] on, which, you know, [F] it was the weakest of the cut.
[E] And suffer.
[Gb] You know, the record will be [B] quieter.
It will have to be quieter.
If the record was quiet, then it came [D] across the radio quiet.
You lost people's attention.
[E] So the idea was to keep the records hot and keep the size as short as you could.
We figured max [C] about 17.
18 minutes a side.
No [Bm] more than 18 minutes.
No more than 18 [D] minutes a side.
We used all the anger come to blows over the outer grooves.
Whose song got the outer grooves?
[E] _ Because the outer grooves were much hotter and the fidelity was much better.
You get the inner grooves.
You know, vinyl discs are, you know, people worship vinyl discs.
But you get to the inner grooves of vinyl discs.
They don't sound so good.
Graham Nash is really good at explaining all of this stuff.
He had that experience in London and the studio.
_ [Bb] That's true.
[A] Those guys gave us a lot of fun.
_ _ It was a great [D] time too.
The [Gb] European Crossroads [Em] designation.
We did one of the stages overall.
We were [D] on the streets the second [E] time.
We were going across the city.
They had a house with a pool.
And I'll never forget that.
And we had the castle.
Yeah, that's right.
With _ _ _ _ that big mansion.
Oh, right.
That's right.
Jack Cassidy brought a day in the life.
An ascertaining day in the life. _ _ _
[D] It was a [E] huge delight in getting in the snow.
Remember the 1968 Northwest Tour?
The one that just came out?
We wouldn't leave until we had that in America.
[A] _
_ [E] It's hard to listen to that one.
_ [Gm] _ [A] _ _
It must be Stills and [G] Nash.
Number one.
And number two, the new songs that Conan and Jerry had written. Right.
Because the new songs really didn't lend themselves to that.
That falls against the whole psychedelic [Am] range of [Em] treatment.
It also felt a [A] lot easier.
Yeah, that's true.
The songs were easier.
Yeah, the playing [G] of them was easier.
It wasn't such a nightmare electronically.
We were just starting to get a handle on songwriting.
Yeah.
Basically, [A] you know, the song's the [C] song.
The way we [G] came up with songs up to that point, we just, we'd play a little.
Hunter wasn't, you know, Hunter wasn't plugged in that much.
We were [Am] trying every conceivable [Em] way.
Somebody would [C] take a section of a song.
This is it.
Yeah, I got it.
I [Ab] got it.
I [Em] got it.
And it goes like that.
And that's how the songs [G] got written.
Then Jerry and Hunter hooked up and came up with a slug of songs.
And [Am] for the most part, that was looking at it.
[C] And the other thing was that by that time, we had kind of explored that whole [G] seven-headed dragon, come and eat your mind space.
[Dm] And, you know, after [Am] Anthem of the Sun and Life Dead, it was [C] like,
where [G] do you go with this?
Yeah.
What you gonna [D] do now?
It's never gonna be a seven-headed dragon [G] again.
It's gonna be a 49-headed [C] dragon next time, because that's how that goes.
[G] And are we up for that?
Well, Jerry was saying, well, we can just be [B] a normal band, too.
[Bb] _ [G]
Because that was sort of what the [Gb] Crosby influence and stills and all that.
[G] And the thing is, we could sit around with acoustic guitars and kick stuff back and forth.
[D] And that was [A] delightful.
You know, we were on the road a [E] lot.
We'd sit on the diving board [D] by the swimming pool at the motel.
[G] I remember perfectly well just sitting on the diving board.
We need a bridge here.
_ [Am] How did you achieve such a [G] dense sound?
Well, Crosby, Stills and Nash had us waybeated that.
[N] They called that stacking.
We called it stacking back then.
[Am] That was the industry trend for it.
But you record [Bm] a chorus, the Eagles were [C] famous for it.
I don't know how many tracks of oohs back there, [Gm] but they turned themselves into a choir.
[G] And you can do that.
You can turn yourself into a choir.
One person could do it with enough [Gm] stacks.
We probably did [Em] it once and then two more times.
Maybe nine [E] tracks.
Everybody doubles themselves.
Everybody doubles themselves.
And you sing the exact same part three [Em] times.
It's a gorille.
Did you know that a song like Casey Jones, for example,
did you have [G] any idea that it would be such a big [C] song?
Casey Jones, for instance, [F] had that hook, you know, driving that train high on cocaine.
You could almost tell [C] that that was going to sink into the collective psyche.
Casey Jones was a cautionary tale.
[F] Yeah, we tried.
We tried [A] to tell people to be careful.
[E] We tried to tell them to just say no.
Then you get the vitamin C part.
The [Am] cheer went up after the first line.
[A] That was that.
[F] How come Mason's children didn't go on record even though it was recorded?
[Em] Something had to go.
There's only so much information you [E] can put on a television disc.
[Ebm] It was either put this one [D] on, which, you know, [F] it was the weakest of the cut.
[E] And suffer.
[Gb] You know, the record will be [B] quieter.
It will have to be quieter.
If the record was quiet, then it came [D] across the radio quiet.
You lost people's attention.
[E] So the idea was to keep the records hot and keep the size as short as you could.
We figured max [C] about 17.
18 minutes a side.
No [Bm] more than 18 minutes.
No more than 18 [D] minutes a side.
We used all the anger come to blows over the outer grooves.
Whose song got the outer grooves?
[E] _ Because the outer grooves were much hotter and the fidelity was much better.
You get the inner grooves.
You know, vinyl discs are, you know, people worship vinyl discs.
But you get to the inner grooves of vinyl discs.
They don't sound so good.
Graham Nash is really good at explaining all of this stuff.
He had that experience in London and the studio.
_ [Bb] That's true.
[A] Those guys gave us a lot of fun.
_ _ It was a great [D] time too.
The [Gb] European Crossroads [Em] designation.
We did one of the stages overall.
We were [D] on the streets the second [E] time.
We were going across the city.
They had a house with a pool.
And I'll never forget that.
And we had the castle.
Yeah, that's right.
With _ _ _ _ that big mansion.
Oh, right.
That's right.
Jack Cassidy brought a day in the life.
An ascertaining day in the life. _ _ _
[D] It was a [E] huge delight in getting in the snow.
Remember the 1968 Northwest Tour?
The one that just came out?
We wouldn't leave until we had that in America.
[A] _
_ [E] It's hard to listen to that one.
_ [Gm] _ [A] _ _