New True Sadness Tabs and Chords (full album)
Posted by Eric (August 2, 2016 at 1:27 pm)
I’ve just added all the songs from the Avett Brother’s new album, True Sadness to my Avett Archive. This is the first time I’ve laid out an entire album like this.
These lyrics, chords and tabs are as accurate as I could manage through careful listening to the tracks, reference to live performance videos, and comparison to other tabs out there (which are typically riddled with errors, some of them substantial). See below for notes on a couple of the songs, and please email me with any suggested corrections.
- Ain’t No Man
- Mama, I Don’t Believe
- No Hard Feelings
- Smithsonian
- You Are Mine
- Satan Pulls the Strings
- True Sadness
- I Wish I Was
- Fisher Road to Hollywood
- Victims of Life
- Divorce Separation Blues
- May It Last
- Rejects in the Attic (bonus track)
Each of these song layouts is a PDF intended to be downloaded and printed out for playing. For notes on some of the marks and abbreviations used here, see the complete Avett Archive.
Here are a few notes on some of the songs:
- Satan Pulls the Strings: The album version is quite different from the version on Live, Volume 4, lacking the long intro and using only a G chord (live version also includes D). Find the live version here.
- True Sadness: Spacial limits kept me from including the backing vocals on the bridge; I always keep these layouts to two pages, to keep from having to turn a page while playing.
- I Wish I Was: I laid this song out over a year ago, after hearing it at a show in Lafayette, Indiana. Classic Seth love song. The album version may be slightly different from what I have here.
- Fisher Road to Hollywood: I’ve only attempted to provide tablature for the intro to this song. The intro reappears in each chorus, and the other places where Seth walks up and down the fretboard are fairly easy to figure out from the chord forms I’ve provided. Also, Seth and Scott trade off singing the high and low parts; I broke the chorus down into pre-chorus and chorus to more easily note this.
- Victims of Life: From my first listen, this song reminded me of Emotionalism‘s “Pretty Girl from San Diego,” and indeed it is played open in the same key of Bb, unusual for an Avett tune.
- May It Last: I made no attempt to represent the symphonic complexities of the intro, interludes and outro, except to note that there are B6 and Bmaj7 chords in there. As far as I can find, mine is the only version of the song available.
For me, one of the great joys of a new Avett Brothers record is getting to know the music more intimately by learning to play it. Magpie and the Dandelion is especially fulfilling because, with old favorites like “Never Been Alive” and “Skin and Bones” ready to be rediscovered, the familiar but never previously appreciated “Open Ended Life” and a string of outstanding new songs like “Apart from Me,” “Morning Song” and “Bring Your Love To Me.” (Also among old favorites is “Souls Like the Wheels,” but I’ve never learned to play it.)