Joe Bean Chords

Capo 3rd fret

Standard (EADGBE)

Introduction

spoken):

Well, they're hanging Joe Bean this morning for killing a

man in Arkansas. Funny thing about it is Joe Bean has

never been to Arkansas, and on top of that Joe Bean never

heard of the man. In fact, today is Joe Bean's twentieth

birthday.

Verse 1

 SGee ...

  D ... stand

 JGust twenty ...... C

 YGou die .....D.. G

Verse 2

as verse 1, then

 YCes, they're hanging ......G.

 TGhat Joe BeDan ....G..

Verse 3

Verse 4

End(tacet)

"Happy birthday, Joe Bean"

This song is all strumming. Over the spoken introduction

he strums a G chord once before speaking, and then once for

every other beat in a verse. The second-to-last strum (on

"today") is arpeggiated, and the last (after "twentieth

birthday") is done one string at a time. He's not keeping

time, but I guess if the last two chords were tabbed it

would look like this:

The main body of the song is standard Johnny Cash

strumming. He plays some bass notes independent of the

chords sometimes, but there's no real picking pattern.

The first verse only consists of four lines. The rest are

all six lines long.

In the fourth verse, on "It's not up to me, but this much,

Joe Bean, I'll do," he interrupts the rhythm of his

strumming. He strums G on "not" and mutes the strings.

He plays arpeggiated chords on "me" (C chord), "much"

(

  G chord), "Bean" (

  D chord), and "do" (

  G chord).

The last line, "Happy birthday, Joe Bean" is sung without

the guitar, to the tune of the first line of the happy

birthday song.

G C D

B|-3-1-3-|

G|-0-0-2-|

D|-0-2-0-|

A|-2-3-0-|