More maritime thrills, courtesy of the Ballina Whalers. This is, of course, AKA The Humpback Whale, as made famous by Nic Jones on his legendary Penguin Eggs album. No claim to originality this week - I’m more or less copying what he did on the song (though it’s not a verbatim cover, as I haven’t actually transcribed it), with a couple of small tweaks. I love the bagpipe-y drone strings in this tuning. Gives an epic quality to an already-pretty-big story.
So… IDK if this was the tuning Nic Jones used (see above), but it fell pretty well under my fingers: DADGAD with a dropped low A, for DGDGAD, but off the 5th string. Capo on 2nd fret for the key of A.
I’ll continue to talk in roman numerals* but the actual chords are: I - A; IV - D; V - E; and of course G for the bVII in the turnaround.
Next week - “Beggars Oil” by Kelly Joe Phelps
* if there’s interest, I’ll do a little primer on understanding chords by their position in the scale, rather than by name. It helps a lot, especially when you get into open tunings, where traditional chord shapes get a bit wiggly
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