Railroad Boy
Trad.
Performed by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez during the second Rolling Thunder
Revue (1976), incl. the Hard Rain TV special
Tabbed by Eyolf Østrem
Dylan plays uncapoed, with the chords Am and F, whereas Baez plays finger-picking style with a capo on the 5th fret, where she produces the little interlude, that is what makes this song something special (aside from their singing, of course). The rhythms vary a bit, but this is in essence what she plays:
: . . . : . . . : . . . : . . .
|-----3-----0-----|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
|-----------------|-----3-----0-----|-----------0-----|--0--------0-----|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----3---------3-|-------3-------0-| 2x
|-----2-------2---|-----2-------2---|-----2-------2---|-----2-------2---|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|
Em
Em
She went upstairs to make her bed.
C Em
And not one word to her mother said.
Her mother she went upstairs too,
C Em
Saying "Daughter oh daughter, what's troubling you?"
Oh mother oh mother I cannot tell.
It's that railroad boy that looks so well.
He's courted me my life away.
And now at home I long to stay.
There is a place in yonder town
where my love goes and he sits there down.
And he takes a strange girl on his knee,
And he tells to her what he won't tell me.
Her father he came home from work,
Saying', "Where's my daughter, she seems so hurt"
He went upstairs to give her hope,
And he found her hanging by the rope.
He took a knife and he cut her down.
And on her boossom these words he found:
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep.
Put a marble stone at my head and feet.
And on my grave put a snowwhite dove
To tell the world that I died of love."
Dylan’s guitar:
Am
She went upstairs to make her bed.
F Am
And not one word to her mother said.
Her mother she went upstairs too,
F Am
Saying "Daughter oh daughter, what's troubling you?"