As Ugly As I Seem

As Tears Go By

Arthur McBride

The Art of Dying

Arlington

Are You Ready For The Country?

April Come She Will

And I Love Her

Amazing Grace

All Through The Night

All Along The Watch Tower

Alberta #1

A Day In The Life

The Cuckoo Song

Even though I haven't any guitar chords for this one, I am including this song as the first entry because it is, perhaps, the oldest written English folk song known to have survived the centuries since it was first heard.
The link, attached below, to a youtube video might provide an idea of what it sounded like in the 13th century (although, I think this video might have sounded better without the musical background playing).    The Cuckoo Song video

Lyrics

It was quite a fun project transcribing into electronic form all those old accumulated scraps of paper on which I had scribbled out songs over the past 40 years, and, with the help of Google, researching the origins and histories of those songs.  None of the songs in this song book are mine, and I have tried as best as possible to give proper credit to the actual song writers.  The arrangements may not be exactly correct.  It became quickly obvious as I researched the song origins, that many songs have several versions (such as the studio recording vs the live performances vs the published editions).  So, I simply picked the verses which I liked the best and plastered them together.  I take no credit for these arrangements and hope that I have not offended anyone, especially the original artists, in posting these songs.  Should anyone have any objections to my postings, please let me know, and allow me to apologize in advance.  All errors and omissions are entirely of my own doing.

You can in touch with me by posting to this blog or by e-mail at dcrowe2@gmail.com

Chord Progressions

This book may best be enjoyed by guitar playing novices.  The more advanced players will likely find many faults in my arrangements not to mention the lack of sophistication in my choice of chords.  Because I have never mastered the frets, I have, for the most part, chosen the easiest chord progressions that I could determine.  I have attached a copy of my "transposition table" which helped me to establish the easiest patterns. Should anyone wish to change the progressions, this table will enable you to do so. Furthermore, there are occasions where the song requires the use of certain variations of chord formations.  I have attached another file, entitled "chords" illustrating how these variations are formed.    It is also worth noting, that sometimes, I have eliminated certain chords which I found to be too hard to form, but I encourage anyone to make any changes to the arrangements to complement their own vocal range and acumen.  Any suggestions for improvements directed towards the ease of beginners are most welcome.  Finally, for those players who wish to improve their knowledge of the fret board, I have attached a third file entitled "guitar notes".  I had to convert these files to jpeg form and I'm not entirely certain how well they might be printed out.  To this end, if you would like to receive these files as PDF's, please let me know and I will try to send them to you by e-mail.

Introduction

This book is dedicated to my friend, John Sproule, who among many other things, taught me how to play Neil Young's "Helpless" on the guitar while we were both in college at Loyola of Montreal a few decades ago.  Despite all the years that have passed since those wonderful afternoons of jamming with John and Earl in John's family living room on Connaught Avenue, my current guitar skills might well be described, appropriately, as helpless, but my enjoyment of singing a song while strumming the strings of a guitar are as strong today as they were back in the 70's, and I shall be eternally grateful to John for this simple pleasure.