Chords for Chris Wall Songwriters Across Texas Show

_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [N] This is called Six Shiny Strings and
_ it's
You know Johnny B.
Goode and Tennessee Flat Top Box are all about the positive side of music and this one is
Quite that positive [Eb] because here's the other side of what happens to musicians
So this kind of traces the arc of a young guy who finds a pawn shop guitar.
That's all they can afford
Buys it learns to play it real good
gets on the bus and heads down the road for 30 or 40 years and then
I won't give away the ending but it's about the career of a musician, [Fm] you know, I
Know so many of those guys, you know great guitar players and musical enthusiasts
And then their consequences to life on the road for 30 or 40 years
It was [Db] an unusual song for me because usually I [A] have to really work on to me.
It's like building boats
it's just you got a
cut and place and shin [D] and this one just the chorus of this song came to me while I was driving to Johnson City and
See a friend helping remodel his [Bb] cabin actually [D] and boy.
It's just [Eb] the whole thing came to me
I wasn't thinking about anything.
I was just driving and I'd never had that happen before so I figured well, maybe [D] that means it's good
[Eb] I don't know.
So I filled in the blanks and finished the song
[D] _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ On the downtown street Memphis [F] cats walking in the [C] Elvis shoe _
Ain't got enough to make the rent much less pay [G] his dude
_ [C] But he walks into an old pawn [F] shop and he plucks down everything
He's [C] got six shiny stripes [G] on an old [C] what?
_ _ Well a man throws in an old [F] case he can't wait to get it [C] home
_ And he plays and he plays in his secret place till there's a pounding [G] on the wall _
_ [C] The guy next door he'll knock [F] it off man
I don't want to have to call [C] the cops, but he [G] can't stop because he's [C] done heard the call
_ _ six shiny stripes [F] on an old [C] wooden box
Put her in the right hands man the [G] dang thing nearly popped
[C] It'll thrill your soul it'll chill your [F] bones brother right down the side
[C] six shiny [G] strings on an old box
_ [C] _ Well, he picks any place on it every [F] day till he finally [C] gets the call
It's all man's to Trump to play down at [G] the Legion Hall
_ _ [C] Well, he hits the stage and he burns [F] it up
The crowd starts yelling brother turn [C] it up and he takes his first step down the lost highway _ _ _
[G] six shiny [F] strings on an old [C] wooden box
Put her in the right hands man the [A] dang thing nearly popped
[C] It'll thrill your soul.
It'll chill your [F] bones brother right down the side
[C]
six [G] shiny strings on an old box _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _
_ They [Am] said player [G] hard-out kid [F] Oh Lord, don't you know [C] he did
In a cloud of dust he was on the [G] bus and gone
_ _ [Am] bright [F] lights and neon [C] signs the years flew [F] by four four times
[C] Now he calculates the price of [G] every song
_ [C] On an old tour bus in Texas [F] cats picking out a [C] lonesome tune
_ He tells himself he's trying to ride he's just a howl
[G] _ Well, [C] it starts downhill and it hits the [F] skids
Sorted wives and a few ex [C] kids.
He can't [G] make the change that's a [C] comment soon _
In some old Nashville hot shop [F] man's leaving with the [C] cash in hand
_ He traded him a marked box and one shiny [G] golden man
_ [C] Outside some kid has stopped to [F] God staring at the window of that old car [C] shop
six shiny [G] string on an old [C] bar _ _
six shiny strings [F] on an old [C] wooden box
Put her in the right hands man.
The dang thing nearly tossed
It'll thrill your soul.
It'll chill your [F] bones brother right down the side
[C]
Six shiny strings [G] on an old [C] what? _ _
_ six shiny strings [G] on an old
[C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ My influence it almost sounds trite because everybody cites Waylon Willie, you know Merle
How can you not if you're doing country music that's in your music?
That's just the way it is a lot of the Texas guys now.
[E] I'm from Montana
So I came down here a little later, so I don't have a lot of the Western swing
Influence that a lot of these guys grew up with and so that that's something that's kind of come along
_ _ I've got all these heroes, you know, and a lot of mark country songwriters
The great Jon Stewart from the Kingston trio James Taylor loved the guy and people look at me
Oh James Taylor was beautiful and he plays beautiful guitar.
He writes great songs
Johnny Mercer when I was a kid
We lived in California and Johnny Mercer was I played high school football with his son got to know Johnny Mercer
So I started listening to these lyrics and he was [Gb] unbelievably great, you know, and I would say, you know, my stuff's lyric
Oriented it's the story.
It's the hook
[E] that kind of thing not the greatest melody writer in the world, but
_ And the song always starts to me with a idea a lyric a story
I've never sat down and had a pretty melody and I thought oh I got to write something for this
It's never happened.
It always starts with the words. _ _ _ _ _
I
Started I tried to write a bunch of John Prine songs and they weren't very good at all
So [N] I and that's one of the things in writing, especially young guys is finding that your own voice
And you know people talk about it and they pay lips at writers novelists finding your own voice.
It's really important in songwriting because
_ It lends that element of truth that people believe and that's one thing.
I really like about Texas songwriting
Is that they're not writing a hit?
Hit or a song just to be a number one hit
You know sugar sugar
Some song like that.
They're writing something that's very real to them and a lot of times it's
Texas centric I have that doesn't bother me as long as true, you know, and that's that's what Dale Watson does
So great.
I mean he writes real true honky-tonk stuff
Jerry, Jeff Guy Clark is the ultimate to me, Texas songwriter of writing just right in your heart making it rhyme and
Throwing in some clever lyrics to get people's attention, you know _