Chords for The Smashing Pumpkins - Return of the Gish Guitar

[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ Open up the case and there it was, just as I remembered it, and 27, almost 27 years later,
[D] it's back.
[E] _ _ _ _ _ I _ _ _ _ _ _ always felt the guitar would come back to me.
I [Bm] can't say why I felt that way.
So I never really stressed about it too hard.
It always was like the feeling that it was at somebody's house, in somebody's closet,
and if I could just go to the right house and get in the right closet, I would get it back. _
[N] And it's wild, I mean, because, you know, it's like seeing an old friend after a lot of years.
There's things that you don't remember, and you think, oh, I don't remember that at all,
which is strange, because I played this guitar thousands of hours.
And then there's other things that I completely remember and bring me right back to,
playing on all those stages back in the day.
The _ sound of this guitar defined the way the band sounded.
Amazing.
So how did it happen?
_ _ _ How did it happen?
Well, funny you ask, James.
_ How did it [D] happen?
How did it happen? _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ [D] St.
Andrew's Hall, 1992, [Dm] the Smashing Pumpkins got a chance to go up to Detroit and play a one-off show.
We didn't have a normal road crew, so we took our buddy who would roadie for us,
and we drove up for the day, played the show, walked off stage.
I was down in the dressing room, and here comes the friend roadie.
Somebody just walked out the back door with your guitar.
What do you mean, somebody walked out the back door with your guitar?
I went to the police, offered a [G#m] $10,000 reward, nothing.
I guess about four or five years ago, I offered a $20,000 reward, no questions asked, no police,
just give me my guitar back.
Somebody would come to me.
I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who might [D] know the guy who knows the guy.
And it was always a dead end.
So when I got the message a few months ago, I think I know where your guitar is, please call me.
The lady who was very nice who joined the call started saying,
we know this person, this person in the music business, so she sounded credible.
We think we know where your guitar is.
The people don't want any money.
Great.
_ [E] _ _ _ _
_ Amen.
So _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] the trail goes cold for [C] a few days.
I start thinking, is this a [Em] scam?
Maybe it's a fake.
_ _ _ The story that was told to me was about 10 or [B] 12 years ago.
The people who had the guitar bought an estate sale,
and it had been hanging up in their basement for about a decade.
[E] This great man, Alex Heisch, got involved,
_ and he brokered the whole thing with the people who had the guitar.
They sent me some pictures.
They asked, is this your guitar?
I said, it looks like it, but I can't be sure until I see it in person.
And there were other little markings like this little etching, which somebody had done before I got it.
Oh, well, that right there, right?
So you recognize that.
Yeah, and this, I always hated that because obviously it was like a cigarette burn thing.
Roughly about a week ago, went to the Sunset Marquee here in Los Angeles,
opened up the case, and there it was, just as I remembered it.
The paint job that I put on it, the weird markings that only I would know about,
and 27, almost 27 years later, it's back.
Well, when Jimmy Chamberlain sold me the guitar, _ although I loved the guitar right away,
I was disappointed because the last thing I ever wanted was a yellow guitar.
And although I worship people who played this color guitar,
Yngwie Malmsteen and Ritchie Blackmore,
_ and this was very much the style of the time, _
_ certainly didn't go with my goth rock look at the time.
So although I did play it for a while, just as a straight-up yellow guitar,
I got it in my head to paint it.
And being no painter myself, I basically would just load up the paint and just jab it.
So that was one of the ways I knew I couldn't be faked out with the guitar
if somebody had done a fraudulent version because the paint job was very specific.
_ And because nobody had any pictures of it from back in the day,
nobody would have been able to figure out the type of paint and the way that I'd paint it.
So as soon as I saw the paint job, I knew immediately that it was the guitar.
I feel like Rob Antique Roadshow.
But even if you look at the original photos, there was a particular body wear here,
which you can't fake that.
But yeah, the minute I got this guitar, it was suddenly all the ways that I'd been playing for years
seemed to come alive.
And this sound, of course, the sound of this guitar defined the way the band sounded
as we sort of pivoted from a goth band to more of a heavier psychedelic band.
After 27 years, when you pick up this guitar, _ what did you play, right?
So I had to play this because this was the complete confirmation that it was the guitar. _ _
_ _ You can hear this guitar all over GISH.
And obviously, if anyone saw us on the GISH tours, this was the main guitar that I was playing.
So huge sentimental attachment.
[Em] And I was never able to find another guitar like it.
I mean, this is a common guitar.
It's not highly sought after mid-70s Strats.
They call it the Bowen Strats, the little bullet here.
And I _ was never able to find a guitar that had this exact sound.
_ _ [E] When I strung it up the other day and plugged it in, I was like, there it is.
There's that sound that I've been looking for all these years.
It's hard to put into words other than it's the sound of my youth and a few other people's. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ What's amazing is [D] I'm [E] in the studio right now doing demos for what should be the next Smashing Pumpkins album.
[G] _
_ _ And very much a guitar record and really have to play a lot of guitar to make the record work.
And so getting this guitar back takes me back not only to the beginnings of the band and that style,
but the style of the music has something to do with this guitar.
So it's almost like the guitar came back at this perfect time for me to make this record.
And maybe that's just where I am at in life.
There's just such a deeper level of appreciation for the magic that came out of this guitar
_ [N] when it was really make or break, working at a record store or going on to live my dream as a musician.
Even though this is just a thing, it's a physical object.
It's just a piece of wood and some wires.
It means so much more to me because it really symbolizes the beginning of that particular journey.
And I don't think any of us could have figured that we would _ still be playing,
and even in some cases playing songs that were written and recorded on this guitar.
So I look forward to playing this guitar on stage [C#] again.
I look forward to recording it.
And it just seems to all connect with where everything is headed,
this sort of full circle feeling of life and _ _ gratitude, really.
[A] _ _ _
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Oh, _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ [A] yeah.
_ [N] _ _