Chords for "A Lesson with Steve Earle: Guitars, Songs and Picking Techniques

_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Sunset in my mirror, pedal on the floor,
_ I'm in New York City and I won't be back no more,
[B] Won't be back [E] no more, [F#m] boss, won't see [E] me around,
Goodbye, guitar town. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _
[C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[G#] _ _ [F#] _ _ [C#] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ I went downtown just to ease my pain, _ _
[F#] I went downtown just to ease my [C#] pain,
_ _ I [G#] ended up [F#] out walking in the [C#] rain,
_ _ I took my pistol and a hundred dollar bill, _ _ _
I took my [F#] pistol and a hundred [C#] dollar bill,
_ _ _ [G#] Everything [F#] I need to get me [C#] killed,
_ _ _ Now south side girls, they sued me just fine, _ _ _
[F#] South side girls, they [C#] sued me just fine,
As _ _ [G#] long as I [F#] got money, they don't [C#] whine,
That's important. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ _ _ [C#] _ _ _ _
Now the devil lives on Lewis Street, I swear, _ _
_ He [F#] lives right down Lewis Street, [C#m] I swear,
_ [C#] _ _ I [G#] seen him [F#] rocking in his rocking [C#] chair,
_ _ I start [G#] way up top of Lewis Street, _ _ _
_ I walk down to [C#] the end,
I _ [F#] start way up top, I walk down to [C#] the end,
_ _ I'm going way down in the bottom, y'all,
I come back up again,
My mama told me, papa, too,
They both [C#m] talked, they turned [C#] blue,
But I got [F#] them old South Nashville blues [C#] again,
_ _ I [G#] can't be satisfied,
[Fm] Till they light me up [F#] again.
_ [C#] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Boy, if I didn't know you wrote that,
I would have thought it was some old Texas blues
from the 20s or something.
[C] Well.
That's pretty traditional sounding.
I did see Mance Lipscomb, you know,
in the same room on more than one occasion,
which is, for me, I mean,
Mississippi John Hart played similarly,
but Mance, I think the difference between those guys is
they were way more in tune than some of their contemporaries
and much more melodic than some of their contemporaries,
both of them.
And _ I think in Mance's case,
I know pretty much where it comes from.
It comes from _ playing, he played dances.
He played in whorehouses and he played at dances,
played solo guitar for people to dance to.
And so he was learning the same stuff
that piano players were playing.
And it's, you know, he was as much a ragtime guitarist
as he was, you know, straight blues guitars.
So let's get back to the song,
which has _ a lot of great little blues licks in [G#] it.
Yeah.
[F#m] _ [C#]
Yeah.
There's the sort of typical [A#m] Robert Johnson turnaround.
_ Yeah.
Which was kind of probably is where it [Fm] started.
It's like, and I think because I was trying to write something
a little more melodic and I originally wrote this
and played it on a resonator guitar that belonged to Ray Kennedy,
who was my partner in the studio that I owned for years and my co-producer
and all those records I made in the nineties.
And, you know,
the other records we produced to listen to [F#] Williams records [C#] and other.
_ And then when you capo up this high, it's that thing again, _
it compresses the fretboard,
gives you a little more room to reach [C#m] in things without killing yourself.
[C#] Cause I mean, I did, it was recorded live.
I sang it and played it at the same time.
And it's, you know, so.
And you have that little, the nice little lick with the,
the third fret on the third string,
go into the open second, that little, no, the other one. _ _
_ So that's a different.
That one.
Yeah.
[F#] And that's all the way through.
_ [C#] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ [F#] _ _ [C#] And that's, you know, that's mass and, and, you know, Mississippi,
John Hurt.
That's, that's where that all comes from.
It's just keeping that.
And, you know, it's not,
it's related to things like sparkle and shine those things, you know,
those are basically blues changes too.
You just take the sevenths and the ninths out right now.
It's where that kind of bigger stock car comes from.
Right.
Yeah.
So you've got play, play one more time. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ So you there, you'll,
your thumb is actually playing the little melody.
It is. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's _ _ _ _ there's a,
there's a couple of places where it comes.
_ _ [F#] _ _ _ [C#] _ _
_ _ _ _ Yeah. _ _
_ [G#] _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Yeah.
_ _ _ _ _ And the important thing I think about it as a,
as a guitar piece is it was,
it was basically _ contrived for me to play and sing at the same time.
And it's one of [F#] my favorite things about,
about those records is, you know, there's some friends of mine,
_ very big event that happened in Houston,
Texas when I was living there was lightning Hopkins did a show with ZZ
tops rhythm section.
And it was, and I got to go,
I heard about it cause I was in the right place at the right time.
And the rehearsal for it was described to me later, you know, by,
by people that were there and dusty hill,
the bass player asked lightness and mine.
And I'm not sure where that,
that change comes around to the C chord there.
And he looked at me and said,
lightning change when lightning wanted to change. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _