Chords for Steve Earle on Letterman 1988 (Copperhead Road)

Here as a matter of fact, it's called Copperhead Road.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Steve Earl
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_ [G] Now the revenue man on the granddaddy bed
[D] He'd help a hollerin' little baby
[G] Spend my time up that road
[D] Never come back from Copperhead Road
My _ _ _ _ daddy ran a whiskey and a big black dive _ _
_ All that and lots of other business to drive _
_ Tried to count a share plan on the side
Tried _ _ to call a family on the side _
_ Well him and my daddy and Jenny Diane
I _ still remember that night _ _
_ [G] We'd be slippin' around in the middle of the [D] night
Heard mama cryin' and somethin' was right
[G] Sitting down in the house with a big load
[D] He could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ I'd sit by him and laugh with him
Watch _ _ him whisper, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'd _ done two tours of duty, baby, and then
I _ _ came home, I had a brand new plan
I'd take a seat in front of him and sit the boat
I just planted up a holler down Copperhead Road
_ [G] He'd got a VJ, he's got a chopper in [D] the air
I learned to wake up screaming like a backbone
[G] I learned to think in two, Charlie don't you [D] know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road _ _
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Thank you very much.
_ _ But what is the origin of the instrument?
It's an ancient_
I think mandolins come from Italy originally.
But there's a lot of instruments that came over to this country
and violins and 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 doubled.
It's four strings doubled, like a 12 string guitar.
And playing that, would you be able to play a violin, do you think?
It's the same, it's exactly [D] the same fingering of the violin
[N] but I never played mandolin until I wrote this song
and I wrote it on mandolin, I happen to have one laying around the house
so nobody can tell me I'm playing it wrong because I wrote it.
No, it just sounded fine to me.
Yeah, it sounded good to me.
At one time, did you write a song that Elvis Presley recorded or what happened there exactly?
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, this was like_
I was about 19, it was in 74 when I first came to Nashville
and they were getting ready to do like a little bit more of a_
you know, just a rock and roll record.
Basically, you know, just real simple.
This was a three, like a three chord rockabilly song
and it was kind of weird.
Tony Brown, who produces my records now, was in Elvis's band at the time
and evidently, he was going to record in Nashville for the first time in years
and the musicians had all learned the song.
It was the first song up on the session.
I never had a cut before and my publisher was starting to get nervous
and I was starting to get nervous because my option was coming up
and I was sitting around the office waiting to hear that they had recorded the song
and Elvis came into town and checked into the hotel
but never quite made it to the studio and he never recorded again.
And I was, you know_
Were you paid for the song at all?
No, it was just they had the song up, you gotta get played on the radio to get paid.
I was mad at him for years after he died.
_ I understand some of the proceeds from some of the revenue you generate
with your records and videos and so forth going to a foundation for_
For homeless children because even if you think that no one goes homeless
through no fault of their own, there's no way you can blame it on the kids.
You call 1-800-56-CHILD and it's fearless hearts for homeless children.
Good for you.
Thank you very much for being here.
Good night everybody. _
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