Thanks very much! Great song. You're absolutely right. Original CBJ version was in open D. If you go to the video of their Liverpool concert, M. Timmins is clearly playing open D (on a gorgeous vintage maple flame ES 335, I might add).
Great video! And totally agree about the 335, I LOVE those. Always liked this version and suspected something was up with it. Thanks for watching :) much appreciated
Lou Reed was on TV and was asked about this song; he said what comes to mind is how almost everyone who plays guitar gets it wrong, in exactly the same way this gentleman does. What do they miss? A Bm. So it's...DD....A....GG......BmBM....G....D......then repeats so basically it's a 1,5,4,6 chord progression in the key of D. It doesn't require any alternate tuning, but does use power chords, most notably on the Bm,G,D turn around.
Yeah, seen lots of different ways people play this. This version is unique in a good way i think. I did a cover of the VU version here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JfljpI8Th3k.html if you're interested :) thanks for watching
Thanks! Yeah, super mellow version. There should be some minor chords in the song but the way way he’s playing mostly the low 3 strings and being in open D the chords never really get defined one way or the other I think. In fact, I think the 3rd G string sits out all of this one. They’re like all 5 chords E5 A5 etc. Thanks for checking it out :) rock on!!
No, it can be played in standard tuning like the original Velvet Underground version. I just noticed that the guitarist in Cowboy Junkies played it in open D and I didn’t see a lesson for that version of it. It gives it a nice sound but other than the CBJ version most play this song in standard tuning. But, if you do play it like this in open D the whole song can be played with only one finger :)
