Chords for Dr. John Cooper Clarke, Hugh Cornwell - Back to My Roots

[E] _ _ [Bm] When the mist is rising [A] and the rain is falling
[Bm] And the wind is blowing [A]
cold across [Bm] the moor
_ _ When I was a kid, I was in a house [E] where my father was _ [B] playing [D] classical music,
[A] _ [Bm] _
trad jazz _ and a bit of country and western.
And then my oldest brother I shared a bedroom [Am] with was a jazz [E] fan _ _ _
and a blues fan and then my second eldest brother, [G] [E] he was into rock and roll,
_ [Bm] Eddie Cochran and stuff [E] like that.
So I got [Bm] blasted with all this stuff the whole time
and I couldn't really make any distinction between any of them,
it all got mixed up, [A] which is why I'm [Bm] a mixed up person now I think.
What about you?
Well, [Em] I grew up in [A] the north of England, more or less in the centre of Manchester
in a Victorian converted apartment.
[E] Music happened for me when my uncle Dennis [F] came [F#] to live with us
and he was the real music nut in our family and [Bm] he brought an electrical _ record player,
[C#m] they weren't that common then.
So all these [B] records by people like Doris [E] Day, Nat King Cole, _ _ obviously Sinatra.
American popular music was the first thing [F#m] I ever got excited about.
[G] What was the first record you ever [E] owned?
The first record I ever owned was by Phil [B] Harris, _ _ _
[F#] _ Woodman's Spare That Tree.
[N] God, I remember that.
[G] Remember that one? Yeah. _ _ _ _ _
We [Em] didn't really know each other.
Not really, we were both working in different places, eating out and things like that,
it was [Bm] quite a [F#] busy time.
And he's [A#] from Manchester and I was from London.
[G] Yeah, at that point, I was still living in Manchester then.
[Am] But I went to see The Stranglers at the [G] Free Trade Hall very early on in the days of punk.
I think even [C] pre-Sex Pistols and that, just, The [D] Stranglers were on [Dm] that bill.
_ [Bm] And I assume [C] they were part of that _ [Em] CBGB's New York punk rock axis.
And also there was no [D] groups called anything like The Stranglers in _ [G] 1975.
So I just assumed that they were [Em] American.
We were sneered at by the pub bands because we were younger than them and couldn't play as well as them.
And [Bm] then when the punks came along, they sneered at us because we were older [G] than them and we played better than them.
Like a lot of other [C] bands at the time, we [D] just got swept [A] up in it and said, hey, who cares?
The Stranglers [Bm] definitely had another dimension, no doubt [C] about it.
But I always thought that _ Bob [D] Dylan was in town.
Whenever I saw that John was [Bm] doing a gig, I thought, oh, [C] Dylan's in town again.
_ _ _ _ [G] Sorry you've been disappointed.
_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] John and I [N] were a mutual friend that brought us together and had found that we had a lot of things to talk about and agree on.
So _ _ and then I just happened to be listening to MacArthur Park one night, [Dm] very drunk.
_ [D#]
The original version by Richard Harris.
And I suddenly heard John's voice _ speaking, _ _ erasing the lyrics.
[G#] And so I rang him up and asked him if I prepared the track.
Would he be [Gm] prepared to [C] _ _
give it a [Em] rendition?
He said, yeah.
And we didn't talk about speaking or [Gm] singing it.
We just talked about doing [F] the song, doing the track.
And then when he came to _ perform it, he [C] sang it perfectly.
And so [Dm] the idea of doing the album grew from that, [D] really. _ _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ [C] _ I _
[F] _ _ _ _ [A#] _ _ _ _
[D#] _ _ [C] mean, _ _ _ the thing that MacArthur Park was attractive [A#] to me was the fact that John on it would be a great mate,
like a surreal _ _ _ [F] synthesis of weird left field, a left field idea.
[A#] John and MacArthur [Dm] Park.
And also no one had dared go [F#] near MacArthur Park since Donna [G] Summer in the mid 80s.
And no one has dared [C] go near it since.
So I [F] thought, well, that's the sort of [Bm] thing if people tell me don't touch something, I want to touch it. _
_ _ _ _ [F#m] I always thought Mark Almond should have [C#m] or Morrissey could [G] have done great cover versions of that song.
[F#m] It's a very dramatic song, isn't it?
Yeah.
[A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [A]
I _ _ _ _ like [F#m] a story [E] song, so therefore I like the music of the Arctic Monkeys.
I'm very [D] interested in everything they do.
So [E] then slaves, I like them.
Hey, look out for those kids.
There's always great stuff around, [F#m] always.
Yeah, I'm finding it more and more difficult to get excited [D] about new stuff I hear.
I think modern music has become wallpaper, which is a great shame.
It's too [C#m] available.
Yeah.
Just generally [C] too available. _ _ _
_ _ [F] This is all [G] very fresh to me.
[C] You know, _ and it is_
Well, you've never done it before.
No, exactly.
So it is the thing [Fm] I'm [G] most excited about.
[C] Yeah, sure.
[G] I've made records in collaborations [D] with people before.
And [C] it's wonderful for me [Am] to [Dm] open the door for John [C] into something that he's never done before.
But this guy can sing like a_
It's a [F] mystery to me why he pulled me out