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Introduction (spoken):
Well, they're hanging Joe Bean this morning for killing a
man in Arkansas. Funny thing about it is Joe Bean has
never been to Arkansas, and on top of that Joe Bean never
heard of the man. In fact, today is Joe Bean's twentieth
birthday.
Verse 1:
G
See ...
D
... stand
G C
Just twenty ......
G D G
You die .......
Verse 2:as verse 1, then
C G
Yes, they're hanging .......
G D G
That Joe Bean ......
Verse 3:
Verse 4:
End:
(tacet)
"Happy birthday, Joe Bean"
This song is all strumming. Over the spoken introduction
he strums a G chord once before speaking, and then once for
every other beat in a verse. The second-to-last strum (on
"today") is arpeggiated, and the last (after "twentieth
birthday") is done one string at a time. He's not keeping
time, but I guess if the last two chords were tabbed it
would look like this:
e|-------------------|
B|-----3-----------3-|
G|----0----------0---|
D|---0---------0-----|
A|--2--------2-------|
E|-3-------3---------|
The main body of the song is standard Johnny Cash
strumming. He plays some bass notes independent of the
chords sometimes, but there's no real picking pattern.
The first verse only consists of four lines. The rest are
all six lines long.
In the fourth verse, on "It's not up to me, but this much,
Joe Bean, I'll do," he interrupts the rhythm of his
strumming. He strums G on "not" and mutes the strings.
He plays arpeggiated chords on "me" (C chord), "much"
(G chord), "Bean" (D chord), and "do" (G chord).
The last line, "Happy birthday, Joe Bean" is sung without
the guitar, to the tune of the first line of the happy
birthday song.
Chord formations:
There is a capo on the third fret, and he mutes the high E
string through the whole song.
G C D
E -------
B -3-1-3-
G -0-0-2-
D -0-2-0-
A -2-3-0-
E -3-----
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