Tab: Red Dirt Road - Brooks & Dunn

     There are songs that I really like, but never got around to learning. Red Dirt Road is one of those songs. It has some great riffs, a really clean lead, and follows the ever popular "4 chord pop song" model, and the song is well executed. That being said, why learn it now? Because I was up all night trying to readjust my schedule to work Grave Yard shift after vacation. Depressing...

     Anyway, I learned the song in F, but have transcribed it here in D. It's easier for young fingers to play in this key. If you want to play along with the CD you will need to put a capo on the 3rd fret. It's my arrangement and hopefully you like it.

     I also uploaded a copy to http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ but wanted to include a copy here. If you are interested in my UG profile, you can see it here: http://profile.ultimate-guitar.com/Gruntfish/
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Red Dirt Road - Brooks & Dunn

NOTE: This arrangement is not in the same key as the recording. If you want to play along with the recording move everything up to F major. 

Intro:
    D               A  
 e|----------------------------------|
 B|-3-2-3-5-3-2-3---3-2-3-5-3-2-3----| Hit each shape twice with palm 
 G|-2-2-2-2-2-2-2---2-2-2-2-2-2-2----| muting. 
 D|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0---2-2-2-2-2-2-2----|
 A|----------------------------------|
 E|----------------------------------|

[Verse 1] (With intro riff over D and A)
      D                             A
I was raised off of rural route 3, out past where the blacktop ends,
D     
We'd walk to church on Sunday morn
        G       
and race barefoot back to Johnsons Fence
D
That's where I first saw Mary,
A
On that roadside picking blackberries,
Bm                           G                      
that summer I turned a corner in my soul
         A         D        
down that red dirt road,


[Chorus]
D
It's where I drank my first beer,
A
It's where I found Jesus,
Bm
Where I wrecked my first car
  G
I tore it all to pieces,
D
I learned the path to heaven,
C#/A
It's full of sinners and believers,
Bm
Learned that happiness on earth,
      G
Ain't just for high achievers,
     Em                    F#m                       
I've learned, I've come to know,
               G            
There's life at both ends 
A                D                
Of that red dirt road,

e|---------------------|
B|-/10-----------------| This is played at the end 
G|-----11--11h12p11----| of the chorus and fore shadows
D|------------------12-| The lead coming later in the 
A|---------------------| song.
E|---------------------|
  
[Verse 2] 
Her daddy didn't like me much,
In my shackled up GTO,
I'd sneak out in the middle of the night,
Throw rocks at her bedroom window,
We'd turn out the headlights,
Drive by the moonlight,
Talk about what the future might hold,
Down that red dirt road,

[Lead Over D A Bm G] 
e|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
B|-/10-----------------------------------|-/10----10-12-12-12-15-15-17-19-|
G|-----11--11h12p11-----11h12--11-\9-7-7-|-----11-------------------------|
D|------------------12-------------------|--------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
E|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|


[Bridge]
     Em             F#m
I went out into the world,
      G      
And I came back in,
Em     F#m
I lost Mary,
     G       
Oh I got her back again 
Em               F#m
And driving home tonight
                    G          A    Asus                    
Feels like I found a long lost friend,
D
It's where I drank my first beer,
C#/A
It's where I found Jesus,
Bm
Where I wrecked my first car
  G
I tore it all to pieces,
D
I learned the path to heaven,
C#/A
It's full of sinners and believers,
Bm
Learned that happiness on earth,
      G
Ain't just for high achievers,
     Em                    F#m                        
I've learned, I've come to know,
               G            
There's life at both ends 
A                D                
Of that red dirt road,

[Ending Lead] 
e|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
B|-/10-----------------------------------|-/10----10-12-12-12-15-15-17-19-|
G|-----11--11h12p11-----11h12--11-\9-7-7-|-----11-------------------------|
D|------------------12-------------------|--------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
E|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------|

Reflections of the world we live in...

 

I have fascination with music which I express mostly guitar. I am not creating order out of chaos or anything so nob I wish I could see and feel color like Monet, or taste the absurd post modern world like Dali, but I can't. I can make sounds on the guitar. Slightly more articulate than the inchoate grunting of a base savage, constrained by the shortcomings of my own misunderstanding of the universe and my limited ability to make sense of it all. It is with this rustic  pallette that i try to communicate the beauty, pain, anguish, love, anger, and absurdity thataI see within the world. When i play a song it is my hope that I can share some of the passion and depth that I feel when I hear and play different pieces of music.

Communication is not as easy as it sounds. Even among musicians there are disconnects. Obviously divergent genres of music have a certain commonality, just as there is a commonality in the language of music theory. How complex is music a  a language if we need an entire lexicon to describe the concepts of this unspoken form of communication? The communication I speak of is less defined and more a reflection of the world as fractured and broken down into its component parts by the prism of my mind/soul.

I have been working to develop an acoustic version of Led Zepplin's Kashmir. the original recording is in a DADGAD tuning. My version is in a standard tuning which necessitates some fast chord changes, but it has the advantage of being one less tuning i either have to do on the fly, or bring a pretuned guitar in order to play it. My version also has a distinctly lonlier flavor than the original due to the generous use of sus2 chords.

While relating this to an aquaintance who also plays music I was surprised to hear him ask 'Dude, do you like do bong hits and then play guitar all day?" I'm still unsure exactly what he meant by the comment. 

Maybe that's why I dig music so much. English is such an imprecise language, and music seems to connect on a very base level, even with people who a not musicians.