The Red Rose And The Briar

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  • INTRODUCTION
    In the tablature for the introduction, the symbols "^" and "v" denote
    down-strums and up-strums. The C-chords are played using the {310230}
  • fingering by Wes, but the {010230} fingering isn't very different. It
    sounds pretty good if you change the pattern slightly, too - either by
    doing only single downstrums (no upstrums) in most of the intro, or by
  • playing with fingers, using the thumb to play the bass run and the
    index, middle and ring fingers to play the treble chords. Wes plays
    with a pick, and I've found my usual favourite (a 0.60 mm John Dunlop
  • nylon type) too stiff to comfortably do the double strums at the right
    speed. My only thinner pick was a 0.38 mm Jim Dunlop nylon pick which
    makes the double strums easy but is a bit too pliable to let me
  • emphasise the bass runs, so I got a 0.46 mm JD which is the best for
    my acoustic guitar but the optimum depends on you and your guitar.
     
  • CHD: G C G Em
    ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ ^ v ^
    |------3-------3-------3-------3--|------3---------------0----------|
  • |------0-------0-------1-------1--|------0---------------0----------|
    |------0-------0-------0-------0--|------0---------------0----------|
    |---------------------------------|---------------------------------|
  • |----------0h2-----3-------2p0----|---------------------------------|
    |--3------------------------------|--3-----------2-p-0-----------2--|
    1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .
  •  
    CHD: G C G
    ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^
  • |------3-------3-------3-------3--|------3---3---3---3--------------|
    |------0-------0-------1-------1--|------0---0---0---0--------------|
    |------0-------0-------0-------0--|------0---0---0---0--------------|
  • |---------------------------------|------0---0---0h2----------------|
    |----------0h2-----3-------2p0----|---------------------------------|
    |--3------------------------------|--3------------------------------|
  • 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .
     
    CHORDS AND LYRICS (Bass runs are shown in square brackets [C B A] and
  •  
    {PLAY INTRODUCTION}
     
  • G C G
    Midweek and we reached Scarlet town
    G C C/B Am
  • I was almost dying of thirst
    G C G
    We parked the car in some old schoolyard
  • G C D [C B A]
    The windscreen caked in dirt
    D D/C D/C
  • There was no water in the engine
    D/B Am Am/B C D
    Left no tread upon the tyres
  • G C G G/F# Em
    The electrics were broke 'cause you went mad
    Em/F# G C G
  • You ripped out all the wires
     
    G C G
  •  
    G C G ,
    Across the road, a small cafe
  • G C C/B Am
    In the state of Disrepair
    G C G
  • You went for papers and a shave
    G C D [C B A]
    So I saved you a chair
  • D D/C D/B Em
    I knew it wasn't the journey's end
    Am Am/B C D
  • And that your dream was incomplete
    G C G G/F# Em
    But I just could not stand anymore
  • G C G
    I was dead upon my feet
    G C D [C B A]
  • I was dead upon my feet
     
     
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    There's nothing there in the market square
    Am Am/B C D
  • But the ghost of the Scarlet town-crier
    G C G G/F# Em
    I was dead upon my feet
  • Am C D
    I sing the red rose and the briar
    Am Am/B C D (G in intro)
  • I sing the red rose and the bri-ar
     
     
  • {REPEAT INTRODUCTION TWICE}
     
    G C G
  • The waitress told me her life story
    G C C/B Am
    She'd always meant to up and go
  • G C G
    She wiped her cup on her red pinafore
    G C D [C B A]
  • As we waited for you to show
    D D/C D/C D/B
    And I told her just a little of you
  • Am Am/B C D
    But left the picture incomplete
    G C G G/F# Em
  • You still weren't there to paint it in person
    Em/F# G C G
    So I skipped out on the street
  • G C G
    I skipped out on the street
     
  •  
    G C G
    The newsagent grinned, he said that you'd been in
  • G C Am
    You bought a local paper and some shaves
    G C G
  • And the washroom attendant said that you'd freshened up
    G C D [C B A]
    That you'd left but you hadn't payed
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    And I couldn't figure out where you were
    Am Am/B C D
  • So I went back to look near the car
    G C G G/F# Em
    There's nothing there where it should have been
  • Em/F# G C G
    Just oil on dirt and tar
    G G/B C D [C B A]
  • Just oil on dirt and tar
     
     
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    There's nothing there in the market square
    Am Am/B C D
  • But the ghost of the Scarlet town-crier
    G C G G/F# Em
    And there's nothing there where it should have been
  • Am C D
    I sing the red rose and the briar
    Am C D
  • I sing the red rose and the briar
     
    Am C D [E F#] (G in intro)
  •  
     
    {REPEAT INTRODUCTION}
  •  
    G C G
    I saw it parked way down the street
  • G G/B C C/B Am
    In a garage off on the right
    G C G
  • And a man said, "Get your hands off, son
    G C D [C B A]
    I just traded that wreck for a motorbike"
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    There was nothing left of mine inside
    Am Am/B C D
  • Not even the broken radio-o-o
    G C G G/F# Em
    And I couldn't figure out where that left me
  • G C G
    So I went back to look for Rose
     
  •  
    G , C G
    The Cafe Rouge was a lunchtime rush
  • G C C/B Am
    Of regulars yelling for food
    G C G
  • And the service in there left a lot to be desired
    G G/B C C/B D [C B A]
    All the regulars were getting rude
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    I saw an apron thrown over a chair
    Am Am/B C D
  • A note said, "Hey John, we're gone, we're gone"
    G C G G/F# Em
    And I just smiled 'cause I loved you both
  • G C G
    So I put the apron on
    G C D [C B A]
  • I put the apron on
     
     
  • D D/C D/C D/B
    Still nothing there in the market square
    Am Am/B C D
  • But the ghost of the Scarlet town-crier
    G C G G/F# Em
    Well I just put the apron on
  • Am C D
    I sing the red rose and the briar
    Am C D
  • I sing the red rose and the briar
    Am C D
    I sing the red rose and the briar
  • Am C D [E F#] (G in intro)
    I sing the red rose and the briar
     
  •  
    {REPEAT INTRODUCTION TWICE}
     
  • G
    In Scarlet town where I was born
    C G
  • There was a fair maid dwellin'
    G G/F# Em Em7
    Oh, the colour of her hair was brown
  • Am
    And her name......
    C Am
  • And her name was......
    C Am
    And her name was......
  •  
    C D [E F#] (G in intro)
     
  • {REPEAT INTRODUCTION} G
     
    NOTES
  • 0. According to Stephen M. Webb , "her name was..."
    Barbara Allan as in the song "Barbara Allan" which takes place in
    `Scarlet Town where I was born,' ends up with a rose and briar.
  • I don't have this song, so I didn't know this. I though it might have
    been Helen from "I went to visit Helen by St. Helen's Park" (which is
    in Hastings, where Wes used to live) from the song "Pound, Pound, Pound"
  • on the live & unaccompanied album "It Happened One Night".
     
    1. Many thanks to Patrick Barnett for his
  • generosity and help in compiling this posting and Chris Inglesi
    for pointing out the fact that it's "fair maid
    dwellin'" rather than "family dwellin'" which I had at first.
  •  
    2. All the chords are pretty much the basic fingerings but Wes uses a
    modified Em [0 2 2 0 0 3] and Em7 is [0 2 0 0 0 0]. For those of you
  • unfamiliar with CRD notation, the chords with a slash such as C/B denote
    chords played with a different bass-note to usual. The part before the
    slash is the chord and the note after it is the bass note. So C/B is a
  • basic C chord [0 3 2 0 1 0] but with the bass-note changed to B becoming
    [x 2 2 0 1 0]. In fact you needn't worry too much about the 2nd fretted
    D string. What is important to note is that the bass-note is played on
  • the most convenient string, not always on the bass-E string. In this
    song, the bass-note doesn't actually have to be the lowest note played -
    I've used this notation to denote the bass notes in the bass-strum
  • style.
     
    3. Feel free to email me with any comments (see header for email address)
  • or to request tabs for songs. If you have a favourite JWH song you'd
    like me to have a go at, let me know. I now have the four full albums,
    "The Name Above The Title", "It Happened One Night", "Why We Fight" and
  • "Here Comes The Groom". If I haven't got the songs, I could only do
    them if you send me an audio tape with them on. If you could work out
    the lyrics, that would be a great help. The songs I've tabbed/chorded
  • so far are:
    From "The Name Above The Title":
    I Can Tell (When You're Telling Lies)
  • Save A Little Room For Me
    The People's Drug
    The Person You Are
  • Long Dead Gone } lyrics supplied by
    Backing Out } Alan Pulliam - thanks
    from "It Happened One Night":
  • Roy Orbison Knows (The Best Man's Song)
    - thanks to Will Vaughan & "Sen"
    Kiss/Lovers' Society {coming shortly}
  • and from "Here Comes The Groom"
    The Red Rose And The Briar } thanks to Patrick Barnett
    and coming soon, the version not from "Here Comes The Groom" of
  • When The Sun Comes Out } thanks to Patrick again
     
    These are archived on the guitar tab archives, ftp.nevada.edu and its
  • mirror sites such as ftp.uwp.edu - you can find local mirror sites by
    using a program such as "archie". Cal Woods & Jim Carson, the new
    maintainers of the Nevada archive have kindly placed in it a file to aid
  • archie searches. It is called "Nevada.Guitar.Archive". You can find
    the guitar directory of any nearby mirror sites using:
     
  • unix% archie -m5 -N Nevada.Guitar.Archive
     
    Host unix.hensa.ac.uk
  •  
    Location: /pub/uunet/doc/music/guitar
    FILE -r--r--r-- 80 Jun 16 09:21 Nevada.Guitar.Archive
  •  
     
    Wes's tabs are archived under ???/guitar/h/john_wesley_harding
  •  
    4. The FTP archive at Trinity College Dublin (ftp.maths.tcd.ie) has also
    uploaded a lot of Wes songs in the directory:
  • /pub/music/guitar/h/john_wesley_harding
     
    In addition to the songs I've worked out, there is a copy of Crystal
  • Blue Persuasion, originally by Tommy James and the Chandelles (sp?)
    which appears on "The Name Above The Title". There doesn't appear to be
    a mirror site to Trinity College Dublin.
  • PLAY TOO ..
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The Red Rose And The Briar
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