I thought version 2 was close but this is how I play it. I've tried my best to base it on live performances,
with focus on Peter's guitar part. He uses his fingers to gently pluck the chords in an 8th note pattern
for the majority of the song. He plays it with a lot more variation but the Antlers are brilliant
at creating layers of sound.
I'd recommend playing it with a Capo on 2. Basically there's four chords, not quite sure of the names
so I used jguitar.com for assistance:
G/D) xx000x
D5) xx023x
C/E) xx201x
Am/E) xx221x
There's a specific pattern that repeats throughout the song. You play G/D for a measure and a half, then D5
for the last half of a measure. You do this twice. Then you play C/E for a measure and a half, then Am/E for
the last half of that measure. You also do this twice. Basically:
G/D D5 G/D D5
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
e|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3-3-3-3-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3-3-3-3--|
G|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-2-2-2-2-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-2-2-2-2--|
D|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--|
A|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
C/E Am/E C/E Am/E
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
e|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|--1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1--|
G|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-2-2-2-2-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-2-2-2-2--|
D|--2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2--|
A|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
...for the whole song.
Timing here isn't perfect but you'll get the idea.
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/t/the_antlers/two_crd_ver_5.html ]
G/D D5
In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up,
G/D D5
when a doctor came to tell me, "Enough is enough."
C/E Am/E
He brought me out into the hall (I could have sworn it was haunted),
C/E Am/E
and told me something that I didn't know that I wanted to hear:
G/D D5
That there was nothing that I could do to save you,
G/D D5
the choir's gonna sing, and this thing is gonna kill you.
C/E Am/E
Something in my throat made my next words shake,
C/E Am/E
and something in the wires made the lightbulbs break.
G/D D5
There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling,
G/D D5
it opened up the scars that had just finished healing.
C/E Am/E
It tore apart the canyon running down your femur,
C/E Am/E
(I thought that it was beautiful, it made me a believer.)
G/D D5
And as it opened I could hear you howling from your room,
G/D D5
but I hid out in the hall until the hurricane blew.
C/E Am/E
When I reappeared and tried to give you something for the pain,
C/E Am/E
you came to hating me again and just sang your refrain:
You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare.
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair,
then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying.
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying.
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head,
now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating.
"Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating.
Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy,
wearing silver rings with nobody clapping.
When we moved here together we were so disappointed,
sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed.
It killed me to see you getting always rejected,
but I didn't mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected.
I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes,
I just held you in the doorframe through all of the earthquakes.
But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night,
and I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight.)
But after over a year, I stopped trying to stop you from stomping out that door,
coming back like you always do. Well no one's gonna fix it for us, no one can.
You say that, 'No one's gonna listen, and no one understands.'
So there's no open doors and there's no way to get through,
there's no other witnesses, just us two.
There's two people living in one small room,
from your two half-families tearing at you,
two ways to tell the story (no one worries),
two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry,
two people talking inside your brain,
two people believing that I'm the one to blame,
two different voices coming out of your mouth,
while I'm too cold to care and too sick to shout.
You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare.
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair,
then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying.
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying.
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head,
now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating.
"Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating.
Remember, Capo on Fret 2!
