STRAIGHT TIME
Bruce Springsteen
(from the album "The Ghost of Tom Joad")
Notes: The song has a fingerpicking pattern that's a little different, but
this pattern also varies at times. Listen to the song to pick up on the
nuances, but this should serve as a good roadmap. Springsteen tunes the
6th string to a D. Let the notes ring throughout.
Picking Pattern and Chord Formations:
Dadd11
e |---------------|----------------|
B |-------3-3-----|--------3-3-----|
G |-----0-------0-|------0-------0-|
D |---4-------4---|----4-------4---|
A |---------------|---(0)----------| <----- Bruce plays the open A
D |-0-------------|--0-------------| string occasionally
G A7sus4
e |---------------|----------------||---------------|---------------|
B |-------3-3-----|--------3-3-----||-------3-3-----|-------3-3-----|
G |-----0-------0-|------0-------0-||-----0-------0-|-----0-------0-|
D |---0-------0---|----0-------0---||---2-------2---|---2-------2---|
A |---------------|----------------||-0-------------|-0-------------|
D |-5-------------|--5-------------||---------------|---------------|
Intro: Dadd11
Dadd11
Got out of prison back in '86, and I found a wife.
G
Walked the clean and narrow,
Dadd11
Just trying to stay out and stay alive.
Got a job at the rendering plant; it ain't gonna make me rich.
G
In the darkness before dinner comes
Dadd11
Sometimes I can feel the itch
A7sus4 G
I got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line.
Dadd11
I'm sick of doing straight time.
My uncle's at the evening table, makes his living running hot cars.
Slips me a hundred dollar bill, says
"Charlie, you best remember who your friends are."
Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line.
I ain't making straight time.
G Dadd11
Eight years in it feels like you're gonna die.
G
But you get used to anything.
Dadd11
Sooner or later it just becomes your life.
Kitchen floor in the evening tossin' my little babies high.
Mary's smiling, but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye.
Seems you can't get any more than half free.
I step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me.
Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line.
I'm sick of doin' straight time.
G Dadd11
In the basement, huntin' gun and a hacksaw.
G Dadd11
Sip a beer, and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor.
Come home in the evening, can't get the smell from my hands
Lay my head down on the pillow
And go driftin' off into foreign lands.
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Corrections are more than welcome. Enjoy!
Jason Groce - jgroce@mail.utexas.edu
Playwriting, Department of Theatre and Dance
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