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Beat The Retreat by Richard Thompson
Beat The Retreat
The song is in C mixolydian (C-D-D-F-G-A-Bb), but sometimes A B shows up.
I haven't bothered to TAB it out since it really wouldn't help with the whole
feel of the song, and is kind of against Richard's whole philosophy anyway--
he doesn't play anything the same way twice. It's better to improvise within
the feel of the song, which is slow, solemn, and bluesy, than to learn exactly
what he plays.
Tuning: CGDGBE, low to high
Chords are:
C: o-o-2-o-1-0----|
Cadd4: o-o-3-o-1--|o
G5: x-o-o-o-3-3---|
a: x-2-2-2-1------|o
C Cadd4 G5
Beat my retreat, back home to you
C Cadd4 G5
Beat my retreat, back home to you
A C
I'm burning all my bridges
A C
I'm burning all my bridges
A C
I'm burning all my bridges
G5 C Cadd4
I'm running back home to you
Trailing my colours, back home to you
Trailing my colours, back home to you
This world is filled with sadness
This world is filled with sadness
This world is filled with sadness
I'm running back home to you
[instrumental over same chords as verse]
Follow the drum, back home to you
Follow the drum, back home to you
There was no sense in my leaving
There was no sense in my leaving
There was no sense in my leaving
I'm running back home to you
You can play the song quite adequately in standard, but you won't get
the same bass feel. Also, Richard frequently plays octave bass runs like:
E_______________________________
B_______________________________
G___0___2-sl-3-sl-2_____________
D_______________________________
G___0___2-sl-3-sl-2_____________
C_______________________________
These are _much_ easier when you have the octave G strings as open, since
you can damp out the B string more easily. (Actually, I was led to using this
tuning because I heard these, tried to play them in standard
I'm beating my retreat
Back home to you
I'm beating my retreat
Back home to you
I'm burning all my bridges
I'm burning all my bridges
I'm burning all my bridges
I'm running back home to you
I'm trailing my colours
Back home to you
I'm trailing my colours
Back home to you
This world is filled with sadness
This world is filled with sadness
This world is filled with sadness
I'm running back home to you
I'll follow the drum
Back home to you
I'll follow the drum
Back home to you
There was no joy in my leaving
There was no joy in my leaving
There was no joy in my leaving
I'm running back home to you
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