Chords for "Fly Like An Eagle: 30 Years Rock'n" (Steve Miller Documentary) (Part 2 of 3)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ After about nine or ten months, I called up Lonnie Turner and Gary Malibur and said,
Hey, you know, I've got about 25 songs I want to cut.
[D] Just the three of us, and we'll go in and we'll just cut [D] these basic tracks.
Met Lonnie [F] in San Francisco.
Gary was the kind of [F] guy that if you were a producer and you had to make a pop album,
[A] you'd get Gary Malibur on drums because we need, we gotta fix this [F#] track, you know.
That was [F] my preferred kind of band, was the guitar, bass, and drums.
I just loved it.
[B]
Okay, rolling. _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] One, two.
_ _ [F] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [G] And so we went into [Am] CBS and cut all the basic tracks for both albums,
[F] both Fly Like an Eagle and Book a Dream.
[G] And in [Am] 11 days we were doing about three tunes, four tunes a day.
And then I did all the vocals [F] and all the guitar work over the [D] next year at home.
Okay, if [Dm] everybody's ready, [C] if all the tapes are [E] rolling,
I think we can go with_
[Am] It _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ started out as [Am] a song about the ghetto.
We were, [D] you know, sort of coming, [F] beginning to get out [Am] of the Vietnam War,
and people were [Bm] beginning to kind of look [F] back into cities.
[E] And it sort of developed over [A#] time.
You know, I didn't want [C] to write a real preachy [D] tune.
I wanted to, you know, try and find a [Dm] solution to things.
[Am] So, [D] very young, you know, touring, playing [C] 250 cities [E] a year,
playing every night someplace.
[Dm] It took about three [Am] years for it to all [C] settle into place and become what it is now.
_ _ _ [C] _
_ [A] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
[G] I recorded [E] that song three different times.
And, you know, that means we like went in the studio,
[D] we spent a lot of money, we spent a lot of time,
we brought a lot of people in and recorded it, and went, you know.
[A] _ It was very [Am] different because [A] it was such a great jam to me.
_ _ _ [G] _
_ [A] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [Am] _
We really [A] enjoyed playing this [G] song.
So, [Am] you know, 30 minutes, fine.
_ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ We played it all the time, and [C] it just grew.
[A] You know, sing new verses, make up [C] verses while we were playing on the [Am] stage.
_ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ We don't [Am] choose on the beat.
How's the people _ living [D] in the streets?
[D] _
[Dm] Oh Lord, there's a [Am] solution.
_ I want to fly like an [D] eagle to the sea.
Fly [D] like an eagle, let [Dm] my spirit carry [Am] me.
I want to fly like [D] an eagle.
A [Dm] hard song to [Am] capture that feeling.
[D] You know, it's easy when you play it live.
[Am] But to put it on the record, and then, you know,
cut it down to three minutes and 20 seconds and put it on the [A] radio
and have it, you know, what is [Am] that? _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Eventually, it all ended up in my living room with me
and my tape recorder [D] and this rhythm track, trying them different [Am] ways.
One of the things about Fly Like an Eagle is we [D] would play this song.
[Am] There would always be a mirror ball.
There would always [E] be, you know, in a big [D] ballroom with lights and [Am] stuff.
And that added a lot to the atmosphere.
And without [D] that atmosphere, it didn't feel right.
_ _ So I had [B] recorded it.
I had it all [Em] together.
And the last day after it was mixed, I came in with [C] _ _ my synth [A] that I had.
I had this little, very cheap little [C] synthesizer.
And I hooked it up to my Equiflex.
And I said, I want to put some effects and some things on this.
And that's when I did the space intro [A] and did all these things.
And in about [E] eight minutes, you know, [D] just did the electronic stuff
and put that on there.
All right, so now it's on the tape.
And I'm going, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is working.
[E] So then when Gaines and I are mixing it, [F] we had to get another piece of tape.
And while we were playing that, we found that the bulk erase tape
had a [D] sound on it, and that's the little beep. _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ [D] That's it!
It's done!
_ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Ooh, mama, well, look what's been done.
You can only see the stars after upsetting sun.
[B] _ _ _ You run for the money.
You don't even know about my [F#] mountain heart.
[B] _ _ _ _ _ _
We mixed, fly like an eagle, the entire album in 17 hours.
We were making [B] singles for AM radio that were mono,
and [F#] stereo for [B] FM radio.
We were able to capture [E] both mediums at the [B] same time.
Finally, [G#m] everybody understood [B] that, yeah, you know,
[F#] people want to hear stereo.
You know, [B] they got stereos in their cars now.
And we did a quad mix, too.
[E] You know, so we were doing [G#m] stereo mixes.
They hadn't quad, [F#m] you know, panning [B] like this.
You [F#] know, like anything.
Stars, moon, and the sun. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ [G] _ _
How did you decide which was on Fly Like an Eagle
and which was on Book of Moon?
Well, you know, it was [D#] a really good problem to have.
There [G] was a lot of good music.
_ And I love putting puzzles together, and I love segwaying.
I've always been a fan of _ [Em]
albums that just flow.
I [G#] mean, there were times when everything was on one record,
and it was like, you know, [C] a pyramid of chocolate or something.
It was just, you know, [D] too much.
And over a period of time, I spent a lot of time segwaying
and putting different pieces of music together.
_ And by taking it and spreading it out over two albums,
I was able to use other kinds of music
that you normally wouldn't be able to put on an album.
[C] You know, I had some slow 12-string blues, I had some jazz,
I had some electronic music, I had these segways [A#] and things.
And it got [F] more and more [C] interesting, you know,
[A#] as we started spreading it [D] out.
♪ Sweet Mary _ came walking up to me_
_ _ James is just one of the great, you know, Delta _ harmonica players.
I mean, he's just phenomenal.
We did lots of shows together.
James got me banded, and Steve Miller band did a ton of shows
in the 60s and early 70s.
_ _ _ Sweet Marie is a tune that, you know, [F#] I said,
I got this little tune I want to do, you [E] know,
and I started playing the 12-string.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ And he just picked up that old harp and started playing it,
and we recorded it, and it was_
And that was one of those pieces that,
by spreading all the songs out between the two [D] albums,
that then you're able to put something like that
on a pop [G] record and not have it, you know,
go, well, that's blues, we're not really going to listen to that.
[D] Yay!
_ _ I grew up in Texas where _ pop music was blues.
Jimmy Reed tunes, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, _ Howlin' Wolf
were all [A] top 10 AM hit singles in Texas.
I was just this little kid in a house,
full of [Dm] music all the time, full of great jazz, gospel music,
blues, standards, pop music, you know, just everything.
And musicians, pop had a Magna Corder.
It was a really good professional recorder,
and there were very few of them.
I mean, radio stations had them, and that was about it.
And he went down to this club where Les Paul and Mary Ford
were rehearsing their act.
My dad said, hey, I've got a tape recorder,
you mind if I come down and record you?
And Les said, no, that'd be great, bring it down.
And [G] they became really good friends,
so Les started coming over to the house all the time.
Next thing I knew, I was 9 years old,
and T-Bone Walker showed up at the house
[Dm] to hang out with my [D] dad and play some guitar,
and that was my basic, you know, Les taught me the chords,
T-Bone taught me how to play lead, what lead guitar [A] was.
_ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ [E] You know, T-Bone's_ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _