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The Cremation of Sam McGee - Creek Bend
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Tabbed by: kithkanan
Email: kithkanan@live.com
http://www.creekbendband.com/
Tuning: standard (EADGBE)
I've only been playing guitar for 3 months, so I am just playing chords for now.
In the future, I plan on working on the figure style picking. This song is based
on the poem by Robert W. Service, and is one of my favorites to share around the
campfire. Creek Bend does a few key changes and solos that I have not included
in this version. Just repeat the chord pattern for each verse.
Em C
Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Em C D Em
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
Em C
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Em C D Em
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell”.
Em G
One cold, cold night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
Em G D
The dogs were fed, and the stars overhead were dancin’ heel and toe,
Em C
He turns to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’m gona cash in this trip, I guess;
Em C D Em
And if I do, I’m asking you won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; and he says with a sort of a moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet it ain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread in the icy grave that pains;
I want you to swear, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/c/creek_bend/the_cremation_of_sam_mcgee_crd.html ]
Now a pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would’t fail;
We started on at the streak of dawn; but Oh! he looked so pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
But by nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
A promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart I cursed that load.
In the long, long nights, by the lone firelights, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Cried out their woes to the homeless snows — how I hated the thing.
Then I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
She was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice she was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” says I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coals I found lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames soared, the fire roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my neck, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streakin’ cross the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with my fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’m gona take a peek inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . and the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
He wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close the door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’re gona let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, this is the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who toil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge that I cremated Sam McGee
