Chords for Tom T Hall - The Year That Clayton Delaney Died

_ _ Well, _ _ Clayton Delaney, I thought about, now this is a strange story, but I thought about this song for two years.
Not Clayton Delaney, not the song, but I had this germ of an idea.
What I wanted to do was pay tribute to whatever or whoever it was that got me to Nashville.
Because I had, I loved Nashville when I first got there.
Well, you know, like both of us, it's broke, but having a [Dbm] good time anyway.
Trouble is, I still am.
And you went [G] on and made money out of it.
Well, _
[C] _ [Em] that's the way I [Ab] did it.
So I started [F] _ _ [N] writing about what, you know, there's an old cliche, you write about what you know.
_ And of course, I just thought it was a cliche, but it worked [C] for me.
And I _ wanted to pay tribute to my childhood hero.
So he was really, Clayton Delaney?
It wasn't his real name, because he had a lot of relatives and everything.
But he died when I was about seven or eight years old.
He was about 19 or 20.
He wasn't an old [Eb] man.
_ _ _ And I got to Nashville and got to thinking about him.
So [D] _ I [Db] wrote a song, kind of a tribute to him.
[C] And _ Jerry Kennedy on Mercury Records did a great arrangement on this.
I wrote it in one fashion and he went back and put it in the old Jimmy Rogers.
He played guitar on it too, didn't he?
I think [Abm] so.
And the late Pete Drake played the slidin' double.
But we'll do it just [C] by ourselves here.
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _
[G] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [C] I remember the [G] year that Clayton Delaney [C] died
_ Said _ _ _ [F] for the last two weeks that he suffered [C] and cried _ _
_ [F] Made a big impression on me
Although I was a [C] barefoot kid
_ They said he got religion at [Em] the [G] end, I'm glad that [C] he did _ _ _ _
You know, Clayton was the [G] best guitar picker in our [C] town _ _ _ _
_ [F] Thought he was a hero, I used to follow Clayton [C] around _ _ _ _
_ [F] Clayton used to tell me, son, you better put that old guitar [C] _ away
_ Ain't no money in it, [G] it'll lead you to an early [C] grave _ _ _ _
_ Well, daddy said he drank a lot, [G] but I couldn't ever _ [C] understand
_ I _ _ [F] knew he used to pick up in Ohio with a five [C]-piece band _ _ _
_ [F] I've been wondering why Clayton, who seemed [C] so good to me
_ Never took his [Em] guitar, [G] made it down into [C] an old seat
_ But _ I guess if I'd admit it, Clayton [G] taught me how to [C] drink blue
_ _ I _ _ [F] can see him hatched on to pickin' up the [C] lovesick _ blue _ _
Clayton [F] _ died, I made him a promise I was gonna carry on [C] somehow
_ I'd give a hundred dollars [G] if he could only see [C] me now
_ On a heartburn, I remember the [G] year that Clayton Delaney [C] _ died _ _ _
_ Nobody [F] ever knew it, but I went out in the woods [C] and I cried
_ I _ _ [F] know there's a lot of big preachers, they know a lot more than [C] I do
_ But it could be that the good [G] Lord likes a little [C] pickin' too _ _ _
_ _ _ I remember the [G] year that Clayton Delaney [C] died _ _ _
_ _ Oh yeah, good son, good man Thank you
At [Bb] one time in my career I had eight songs that I had written _ in the