Seasick Steve – Thunderbird
From the album ‘I Started Out With Nothin’ And I Got Most Of It Left’ and the EP ‘It’s
good’
Tuning – This is a tricky one, technically all you need to do is drop your A down to a G
Steve plays it on his 3-stringed guitar, but if you want to play all raw and ramshackle
Steve does, I’d recommend tuning to open G (DGDGBD) so if you hit the 1st or 6th strings
at least be in the right key. Don’t be afraid of hitting the middle D string, it
fine since it’s just adding the 5th to the G chord that makes up most of the song.
if you have a no-name 3-stringed guitar it will be much easier!
To get the tone of the 3-string Trance Wonder use your neck pickup and fingers and crank
gain.
Intro/Verse
“Goin’ up north…”
D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--5h6---6-6-6-6--5--3----------------------------|
G|----0---0-0-0-0--0--0----------------------------| x8
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|-0--0---0-0-0-0--0--0—0h3------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|
Chorus
“Stealin’ Thunderbird…”
[ Tab from: http://www.guitaretab.com/s/seasick-steve/173280.html ]
D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|----11---8--6--6-6--6-8--------------------------|
G|----0----0--0--0-0--0-0--------------------------| x8
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|-0--0----0--0--0-0--0----------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|
Repeat the verse and chorus
Breakdown
D|--------------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------------|
G|------0-------------------------------------------|
D|--------------------------------------------------|
G|--0-----0h3---(x16)—12----------------------------|-(hit string to beat whilst
D|-------------------------sliding to 0)------------|
Repeat breakdown, then go back into the chorus
Bridge
D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--0----------------------------------------------|
G|--0----------------------------------------------|
D|--------(strum for 2 bars, use fretting hand-----|
G|--0------to grab your slide!)--------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|
Slide break
D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------|
G|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------| x2
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|
After this, just ad lib sliding those 3 open string notes between open, 3rd and 12th fret.
That’s it, remember, the more rough and out of control the better!
