Swell Maps - Vertical Slum guitar tab

SWELL MAPS - "Vertical Slum"

sent by: lisa202@aol.com

This is a simple little one-minute postpunk classic from Swell Maps, a

late-'70s band of teenage jokers who created a lot of visionary dissonant

noise and a few great songs. Thurston Moore and Pavement claim them as a big

influence, and if you like Wire's "Pink Flag" album, you'll probably like "A

Trip to Marineville," the 1979 album I took "Vertical Slum" from.

Anyway, this song just has one chord pattern, which is played once by itself

at the song's beginning, then once again with drums and bass, then repeated

six more times under the vocals. No chorus, those crazy kids!

Here's the pattern. All the following are standard barre chords:

E // (12th fret)

B // (7th)

E // (12th)

C // (8th)

E // (12th)

B // (7th)

A //// (5th)

E / (open)

(Actually, the rhythm varies a little from chord to chord, and from bar to

bar - it should all make sense if you hear the song. Sorry for my lack of

preciseness, but this is just one of those easy thrash-it-in-a-garage type of

deals.)

Lyrics:

Got a Rolls Royce

It's driving me mad

I never thought about it

Got a space

Between my eyes

I never knew about it

No more ways

To excavate you

There's no two ways about it

I think that's all

There is to say

Nothing more ... about it ...

The weather! The leather!

The weather! The leather!

The weather! The leather!

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

That's it! Enjoy. This is my first post -- I'll try something more complex

next time.

"It's okay that you haven't heard of us - we're just a Swell Maps ripoff." -

Bob Nastanovich of Pavement. (Quoted at 2 a.m. one morning in June 1992, to a

guy sitting on a porch in my old college town of Columbia, Mo.)