This is a straight forward little ditty. This is from the "Searching for the Heart of
Night CD" Original work as translated by yours truly for educational purposes only.
The whole song consists of 6 chords:
Am - D9 - G - Gb7 - F7 - E7 - all play in the bar positions:
Am D9 G Gb7 F7 E7
E---5------5------3------2------1------0-------------------------------|
B---5------5------3------2------1------0-------------------------------|
G---5------5------4------3------2------1-------------------------------|
D---5------4------5------2------1------0-------------------------------|
A---6------5------5------4------3------2-------------------------------|
E---5------x------3------2------1------0-------------------------------|
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/t/tom_waits/semi_suite_crd.html ]
Now Tom Waits never does anything straight forward. There is a lot of
bass between these notes and it makes up the turn around between the E7
and back to the Am. Think of it as a little 1-4 blues tune with the G
to run down to E7 break with the E7 turn around. The bass in these tracks
is fretless and slides a lot to get a kind of crying bass sound.
Put the chords over the lyrics like so:
1st Verse
Am D9
Well you hate those diesels rollin'
Am D9
And those Friday nights out bowlin'
G Gb7 F7 E7
When he's off for a twelve hour lay over night.
The bass starts to carry the notes down into the Gb7 and the
guitar follows hitting the notes on the lyrics.
The tempo is slow blues pacing. Enjoy!
