Bob Dylan - Ballad For A Friend guitar tab

Ballad For A Friend

Words and music Bob Dylan

Recorded Jan 1962 as a Leeds Music demo

Tabbed by Eyolf Østrem

Open D tuning (D-A-d-f#-a-d'), capo 7th fret.

The interlude figure also appears in "Standing On The Highway", recorded on the same occasion.

Chords:

G 020100

D7 000330

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D

G D G D

Sad I'm sittin' on the railroad track

G D

Watchin' that old smokestack

G D D7 D

Train is a-leavin' but it won't be back.

D7 D

: . . . : .

--0-|-----0-0-----------------|-----0------

--3-|-----3-3-----------------|-----0------

--3-|-----3-3---1-------------|-----0------ etc.

----|-----------------3-----0-|-----0------

----|-------------------------|-----0------

----|-0-----0-----0-----0-----|-0----------

Years ago we hung around,

Watchin' trains roll through the town.

Now that train is a-graveyard bound.

Where we go up in that North Country,

Lakes and streams and mines so free,

I had no better friend than he.

Something happened to him that day,

I thought I heard a stranger say,

I hung my head and stole away.

A diesel truck was rollin' slow,

Pullin' down a heavy load.

It left him on a Utah road.

They carried him back to his home town,

His mother cried, his sister moaned,

Listin' to them church bells tone.