1985. I'm sitting in a classroom in Eastern Wayne High School outside of Goldsboro, NC. I'm talking to the other kids, who, like me, are into Metal. They see the bands whose logos I've tried to draw on the back of my notebook. Metallica. Anthrax. Run DMC.
"Run DMC?"
Be reminded, this was before they did "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith. Rap seemed anti-rock, un-rock.
If you weren't paying attention.
That's Eddie Martinez, a session guy who did the guitar for Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love", among other things. Now, tell me, if you're a kid who wants to grow up to play guitar, who just loves it when the amp goes grrr, you gonna listen to that and say that doesn't rock?
And it's not complex. Eddie goes wild on the track, which I haven't worked out, but the main riff is
E -----------------|------------
B -----------------|------------
G -----------------|------------
D -----------------|------------
A -----------------|------------
E -1----3--3----5--|--5-7-9-5---
The part on the right being A, B and C, we can proceed with this being an A minor, so I'd guess that the left part can be brought to F G and Am, but certainly root-fifth chords are safe and likely more correct to the track.
Yeah, that's slight, but I think it's important to mention this track and it's influence on me, and it's better to hit every month with a slight post than miss one.
This is ever so slightly late. I actually had this worked out a while ago, but a combination of illness and forgetfulness caused me to fail to put it up correctly.
The song for the month is "Take Me With You (When You Go)" by the Jayhawks, from their major label debut, Hollywood Town Hall. I have known the song for 18 years, and I learned the opening riff as one of the first things I picked up by ear.
Except I got it wrong.
Here's what I thought it was:
E -------------------------------------------3----2------------------------------
B -----------1-------------------------------3----3------------------------------
G -----------0-------------------------------2----2------------------------------
D -----------2--------------------------0----0----0------------------------------
A --0--2--3--3---3--2--0--2--0---------------------------------------------------
E ------------------------------3--1--0------------------------------------------
Here's what I now believe it to be:
E -------------------------------------------2----0------------------------------
B -----------1-------------------------------3----3------------------------------
G -----------0-------------------------------2----2------------------------------
D -----------2--------------------------0----0----0------------------------------
A --0--2--3--3---3--2--0--2--0---------------------------------------------------
E ------------------------------3--1--0------------------------------------------
Up to the cowboy and back down, coming off like an alternative bluegrass G-run, ending that staple, suspending the third on a D chord. Except I thought it was sus4-to-major when it was really major-to-sus2.
Here's the chordal structure for the verse and chorus. Remember, it's the acoustic guitar, not the electric, that carries the freight on this song. You could easily play just the chords and sing, plus one or two of the fills, and have it work in a singer-songwriter open-mic night.
Verse
C / / G
D / F / (x4)
Chorus
G / D /
C / / / (x2, or maybe 3, I forget)
There's a cool lick which I think is mostly the bass. I like how it goes on the six-string guitar, though.
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D ------------------------0------------------------------------------------------
A ---3--2--0-----0--2--3---------------------------------------------------------
E ------------3------------------------------------------------------------------
The solo took me a while to suss out. Much like last time, this solo involves R&B-style B-and-E string alternating. There's a third tone in double stops, and I think that thickening third tone is what really got me. Or I might just be dim. The first chunk, it uses that a lot, kinda implying the C and D chords with the 3rd and octave on the first and third string.
E ---8------------------9------10--10--9---8------------------8----9---10---10s--
B --------------------------------------------8b10-8b10-b10r8---------------------
G -9---9b10r9-7-9-7--10---10s11--11--10--9-------------------9---10---11---11s---
D -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a must-know: the major-third jump between the G and B strings gives you the easiest bend-to-unison.
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B -10-10-10-------10-10-10-10-------10-10-10-10-------10-10-10-10-------10-10-10-
G ---------12b14h------------12b14h------------12b14h------------12b14h----------
D -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know which key this thinks it is, but there's an F# and a C# (Db?) that are surely nice and chromatic in this part.
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G -----12----10--11--------------------------------------------------------------
D --12----12---------12--11--10---------10--12--10-------------------------------
A -------------------------------10--12-------------12--10-----------------------
E ----------------------------------------------------------9-10-slide-down------
Here's the original. Well, mostly. More recent and live. Back in the day, the part was done on an SG with a tremolo (Lyre or Maestro). For this one, he has a Tele with a Bigsby, which of course makes me smile. It's a thick, distorted tone, not the normal country tone. I like that.
As I've pointed out before, this isn't dirty, or at least dirty thudding chords, so the hugeness of the lead guitar sound comes from the tremolo. But there is a fair amount of gain in there. There's a second, to-the-outro solo up in there, but I'm not touching it here, but it is of the same style as the first.
And that's it for this month's Songquest post. I'm considering doing the solo for Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" next time.
I don't know if this rises to the point of a resolution, but one of the things I wanted to do this year is learn more songs. I thought about going to a new song a week, but then it got to be 2 weeks into the year and I hadn't hit anything, so I decided to learn one song a month, beyond what Wednesday and Sunday require. The idea is that, for each song, I gain some knowledge of these songs and the guitarists' lead styles, not so I can play out on the song, but so I can integrate it with what I do. Also, as a skills-building exercise.
The first one that I'm doing is one I first heard over a year ago and have blogged about before, called "Cocaine and Ashes" by Jay Farrar of Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo. He's since recorded it with Son Volt and released it on American Central Dust, but the version I know best is him playing with Mark Spencer. He's playing a Creston, a Tele-style guitar with P-90s. We'll see how close my dead-stock Teles and solid-state Frontman get to his sound later.
It's in waltz time. It seems that alt-country folks like waltz time and alt-rock folks avoid waltz time because it feels old. I love when a new drummer comes in and a 3/4 or 6/4 song comes up on rotation, because they always end up counting to four and not three. Verse
D / / D / / C / / G / / D / / D / / C / / G / / D / / D / / C / / G / / D / / D / / C / / C / /
Chorus
G / / G / / C / / G / / Em / / Em / / D / / D / / D / / D / / G / / G / /
Intro is the same as the verse. Chords are G, C, D and Em, which pretty strongly puts this into the catagory of songs in G. I love how the last line of the verse doesn't switch to C, just leaves you hanging on the IV chord, waiting for resolution.
Here's part of the intro.
E -------7----8--8---7-5-5b6--3-------------------------- B -------------------------------5--3-------------------- G --7---------9--9---7-5-5b6--4--------2-0--------------- D ------------------------------------------2-0-----0---- A ----------------------------------------------0-2------ E -------------------------------------------------------
The double stop part reminds me of 60s R&B guitar, like "Memphis Soul Stew" and taken to rock by Jimi Hendrix when he did "Like A Rolling Stone" at Monterey Pop. I originally thought it was B and D strings, but it's a simple transposition because all the intervals are the same. The first "chord", xxx7x7, can be seen as a G major, as you have the third and fifth. It can also be seen as a B minor, with D being the minor third of B. xxx8x9 then works as a C chord (C E), xx5x5 being C7 or A minor, and xxx4x3 being a G.
The seven chords of the G scale ( G , Am , Bm , C , D , Em , F#dim ) in broken R&B form, D and B strings
E ------------------------ B --0--1--3--5--7--8--10-- G ------------------------ D --0--2--4--5--7--9--10-- A ------------------------ E ------------------------
The seven chords of the G scale ( G , Am , Bm , C , D , Em , F#dim ) in broken R&B form, G and E strings
E --3--5--7--8--10--12--13---- B ---------------------------- G --4--5--7--9--11--12--14---- D ---------------------------- A ---------------------------- E ----------------------------
The seven chords of the G scale ( G , Am , Bm , C , D , Em , F#dim ) in broken R&B form, G and E strings, seen another way
E --7--8--10--12--14--15--17-- B ---------------------------- G --7--9--11--12--14--16--17-- D ---------------------------- A ---------------------------- E ----------------------------
The descending bit, starting with the B string E and going down to open A, follows the G pentatonic major scale down to A. But there are some big jumps, maybe not in scale but certainly in position. This is not a lick I would've come up with by myself. I know I play notey, maybe to my detriment. Which is why this is so appealing. It takes techniques I know but in a time and with position jumps I never use. Which is why I started with it.
I will try to add the mid-song solo at a later time. Join us next time for "Rock and Roll" by Led Zeppelin. Or "Take Me With You (When You Go)" by the Jayhawks. Or maybe something else.
