Check out the beautiful video for this song on NPR's website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127220892
Thanks to Don Tago for posting the chords.
This is just a small elaboration on them.
This song is a waltz (3/4 time), so on a guitar you just hit the tonic on the
first beat and then the rest of the chord on the second and third beats. The
chords here are F(133211), Dm(xx0231 / xx3231), Am(x02210), and C/G(332010).
To keep things a little more interesting and melodic, the bass note moves
through the song:
F F Dm Dm Am Am C C/G
--1-1---1-1---1-1---1-1---0-0---0-0---0-0---0-0---|
--1-1---1-1---3-3---3-3---1-1---1-1---1-1---1-1---|
--2-2---2-2---2-2---2-2---2-2---2-2---0-0---0-0---|
------------0-----3-----2-------------------------|
------3-----------------------0-----3-------------|
1-----------------------------------------3-------|
This pattern repeats through the whole song
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/j/josh_ritter/the_curse_tab_ver_2.html ]
F F Dm Dm
He opens his eyes, falls in love at first sight
Am Am C C/G
With the girl in the doorway
F F Dm Dm
What beautiful lines, how full of life
Am Am C C/G
After thousands of years what a face to wake up to
F F Dm Dm
He holds back a sigh as she touches his arm
Am Am C C/G
She dusts off the bed where till now he's been sleeping
F F Dm Dm
Under miles of stone, the dried fig of his heart
Am Am C C/G
Under scarab and bone starts back to its beating
She carries him home in a beautiful boat
He watches the scene from a porthole in stowage
And he can hear all she says as she sits by his bed
And one day his lips answer her in her own language
The days quickly pass, he loves making her laugh
The first time he moves it's her hair that he touches
She asks, "are you cursed?" he says "I think that I'm cured"
Then he talks of the Nile and the girls in Bulrushes
In New York he is laid in a glass covered case
He pretends he is dead, people crowd round to see him
But each night she comes round and the two wander down
The halls of the tomb that she calls a museum
Often he stops to rest, but then less and less
Then it's her that looks tired, staying up asking questions
He learns how to read from the papers that she
Is writing about him and he makes corrections
It's his face on her book, more and more come to look
Families from Iowa, Upper Westsiders
Then one day it's too much, he decides to get up
And as chaos ensues he walks outside to find her
She's using a cane and her face looks too pale
But she's happy to see him, as they walk he supports her
She asks, "are you cursed?", but his answer's obscured
In a sandstorm of flash bulbs and rowdy reporters
Such reanimation, the two tour the nation
He gets out of limos, he meets other women
He speaks of her fondly, their nights in the museum
But she's just one more rag now he's dragging behind him
She stops going out, she just lies there in bed
In hotels in whatever towns they are speaking
Then her face starts to set, her hands start to fold
Then one day the dried fig of her heart stops it's beating
Long ago in the ship, she asked, "why pyramids?"
He said think of them as an immense invitation
She asked, "are you cursed?" he says, "I think that I'm cured"
Then he kissed her and hoped that she'd forget that question
