Chords for Steve Earle - David Letterman Interview

_ Come on over here.
I can see it, see?
I can see it right here.
The Burrow, ladies and gentlemen.
What do you got there?
This is a mandolin.
That is an electrified mandolin.
Yeah, it's [Bm] got a little pickup there.
And is that like a combination [G] of a guitar and a violin, or is that a dumb question?
[N] No, that's a real dumb question.
Thank you very much.
What _ _ _ _ is the origin of the instrument?
It's an ancient, uh_
I think mandolins come from Italy originally.
But there's, you know, a lot of instruments [Eb] that came over to this country,
and _ violins ended up being called fiddles.
Still called these mandolins, but this is a pretty traditional_
How many strings does that have on it?
Eight.
They're [G] doubled.
It's four [Bb] strings doubled, you know, like a twelve-string guitar.
[C] And playing that, would you [G] be able to play a violin, do you think?
It's the same. _
[Ab] It's exactly the same fingering as a violin.
But I never [Gb] played mandolin until I wrote this song.
And I [E] wrote it on mandolin.
I happened to have [Db] one laying around the house.
So nobody can tell me [D] I'm playing it wrong, because I wrote it.
_ [Gb] It sounded fine to me.
Yeah, it sounded good to me.
_ [N] At one time, did you write a song that Elvis Presley recorded, or what happened?
I wrote a song that Elvis Presley didn't record.
Well, hell, I've done that.
_ Basically what happened was I had this song_
They were getting ready to do a record on Elvis.
I was about 19, it was in 1974 when I first came to Nashville.
And they were getting ready to do a little bit more of a rock and roll record.
Basically, you know, just real simple.
This was a three _ -chord rockabilly song.
_ [N] It was kind of weird.
Tony Brown, who produces my records now, was in Elvis' band at the time.
_ [Eb] _ _
Evidently, he was going to record in Nashville for the first time in years. _
The musicians [Gb] had all learned the song.
It was the first song up on the session.
I'd never had a cut before, and my publisher was starting to [Gm] get nervous.
And I was starting to get nervous [Eb] because my option was coming up.
And I was sitting around the office [N] waiting to hear that they had recorded the song.
_ Elvis came into town and checked into the hotel, but never quite [Bb] made it to the studio.
And he [Ab] never recorded again.
_ _ Were you paid for the song at all?
No, it was just they had the song up.
You've got to get played on the radio to get paid.
I was mad at him for years after he died. _ _ _ _