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.