Chords for John Mayer - The Story of The Black One (1/2)

_ _ _ _ _ _ Yeah, this one has_
this guitar has the fourth position pickup from heaven.
It's like_
that guy right there.
That's_
that's where [Em] it's got the_ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ [Em] _ [C] _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Cm] _ [Em] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Gm] _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [G] _ _ _ [N] _ You would just put out the SRV tribute guitar,
which I put my hands on and started playing,
and loved the idea that the body was resonating.
Because the body on a Strat, when there's lacquer around it,
normally doesn't resonate.
And that's where the sort of the germ of the idea.
And it wasn't about, I want a guitar like Stevie's.
It was only in the sense of, I want a guitar that doesn't have lacquer on it.
Bonnie Raitt has a guitar that doesn't have lacquer on it,
and it sounds great, you know.
And the early guitars are great, because they only got a couple layers of paint,
and one layer, one thin layer of lacquer.
So the idea became, well, I'd like a guitar that doesn't have any paint on it.
And when I started to think about it,
the idea of a guitar without any paint on it was just a little too rustic for me.
So I thought, well, if, you know, sort of like the Rory Gallagher guitar,
where there's more negative space than positive space in terms of paint job,
then you could sort of hint at it being,
it really wasn't like, I want an old-looking guitar.
It was a technical thing.
I don't want very much paint on the body, but I don't want a raw,
I don't want it to look like I stripped it, you know.
So that's where the idea was born for the Relic.
So it's cosmetic only in that it's allowing the wood to sort of breathe, you know.
And I had just gotten off a tour,
and was just starting to get the crazies from, you know,
the second or third world tour.
So as soon as I had any time off, I called you and I said,
can I come down and build a guitar?
Because I'd already visited before, and the custom shop was like candy land.
I mean, I was _ [Ab] walking by.
You know, the thing about a guitar is that
any one of them could do the job forever for one person, you know.
And that's the sense you get when you walk through the custom shop.
It's not how many guitars they're making and sending out to stores.
You're sort of like putting your hands on what could be somebody's, you know, main guitar.
And so I was really taken by that, and I wanted to sort of build my main guitar.
And so I drove down to Corona, California for a couple days.
First day I went [F] down, I walked through and met with all the master builders,
[Bm] and in particular John Cruz, who had worked on the SRV Tribute guitar.
And I remember picking up the prototype that he had on the wall.
And he said, well, I've got some other necks here.
And I picked up the neck and I went, [Em] I kind of like this neck, man, [Fm] you know.
And then you walked me over to the CNC machine.
_ [Ab] I picked out a piece of wood and knocked on it like I had any idea what that does.
And I remember the attention to detail in terms of people working there,
making sure that I had the experience of making the guitar.
The attention was so great that one of the gentlemen there made sure that I was the person who pressed start on the CNC machine.
That somehow or another, if he were to have closed the door and pressed start,
that that would have taken away from me the actual experience of having done it.
So it was sort of like, there's the door.
You press that and that and that and that and you press that, you know, just to keep that story going.
_ And I did walk through with the guitar and you were nice enough to make sure that I at least got a second of every little process,
whether it [D] was contouring the body [N] or, you know, sanding the contours that you made out of the machines.
_ You downplayed, I think, too much.
Because you, like the whole radius around the edge, you did that.
And then when we had the sanding on the thing, on the contours and stuff, you were doing all that stuff.
I was doing it with a very watchful eye behind me.
A very watchful [C] eye.
But yeah, I mean, it was enough [Ab] to say that I had done it.
And I think that that's what the point was.
I don't think anyone would have felt satisfied with a guitar that I went and just sort of pointed at.
[B] I remember we walked around, I wanted everyone to sign the inside and they did.
And I said, what do you do?
How long have you been doing it for?
I've been doing it for 30 years.
Will you sign the inside?
Can I get everybody who had any sort of a part in this to [N] sign the inside?
I've cared about it since I was a kid.
I was sitting in detention pretty much all through high school.
And on my notebooks and stuff, because I used to get the Fender Frontline catalog.
And my music store was so cheap, they used to charge for it.
They used to charge like the six bucks it said the Fender Frontline was.
And I would get in, I would draw my own _ item details for the Fender Frontline catalog.
So I'd draw freehand the Strat, the headstock, tuning keys.
And I would write the Fender name, John Mayer Signature Series Stratocaster.
And start writing all the details out.
What kind of pickups it had, what kind of this and that.
So that was a childhood dream.
Almost more than having a record deal.
I never got into like, oh I gotta get signed.
I was already having too much fun doing what I was doing.
Because I was concerned about what color my signature model would be when I was a freshman in high school.
You know, eating during detention.
[Ab] So we left the guitar off on the second day with my having sprayed the body [Db] black.
_ _ I'd sprayed the body, I had tinted the neck, after I'd signed underneath the headstock.
Which I think is one of the coolest points of the guitar.
Is [Ab] that, you know, John Mayer 04 underneath the lacquer.
Which is just proof positive that I was there [Db] before the [Ab] lacquer went on. _
And this was in October that this happened.
This was the weekend of 04.
[Bb] And in November, there's a guitar that shows up at my door.
It's all done, guitar's ready to go.
And I went away for the weekend and I was racing home because I'd seen the FedEx confirmation that it was waiting in my apartment.
And I did that thing that you do as a guitar player when you know you have something really special in a case you're about to open.
And you sort of take that extra moment.
You flipped all the latches, but it's sort of like a little bit like birth.
You have one last second, you go, alright, here we go.
What are you going to be like?
Are you going to be any good?
You know, are you going to come out healthy?
And flip the thing open and there it was.
And it was distressed but gorgeous.
_ And it had a Norm sticker on it.
Remember that it had an Eat It Norms sticker on it.
The smiley face.
[B] That's right.
John had decided to put, I think right here, and it was even cut through the sticker.
And it said, have a nice day, Norms or something.
I remember that.
And he actually took a picture of the guitar because it was on the certificate.
[Ab] And it had the sticker and the first thing it was like, can't take that sticker.
I started playing it.
I don't know if you remember this.
I started playing it and it wasn't there.
And I was sort of heartbroken. _
So I started thinking to myself, this guitar, I know it can be something.
And it just was going, yank, yank, [Bb] yank.
I remember I put it in the freezer overnight because I was so desperate to have something molecular happen to the guitar.
I said, something has to molecularly change with this instrument.
I will not accept that this is the way this instrument's come out.
And I had one of those freezers where it's the whole length of the left third of the appliance.
So I took everything out of the freezer and sat the guitar in overnight.
And I was like, you just sit in there and change.
And the next day I took it out and started playing it