Okkervil River – Presidents Dead (Guitar)

Key
-
Versions (2)

Auto-scroll

Chords

The President's Dead is a song that Okkervil River has performed live in concert, but yet to record. It is pretty simple and the lyrics are amazing.
D               A               Em
The President’s dead, the radio said

                   G          A
Dear friends is it not so horrible?

              Em                               G
A shock to my heart like a knife right through bread,

              A                      D
The newspaper said, the President’s dead.

D               A                       Em
The sea doesn’t dry and the sky doesn’t split,

                    G                     A
But friends it just seems so wrong, don’t it?

                 Em                      G
A shout from the crowd and a shot to the head,

                 A                   D
The President’s lying on the tarmac dead.

D               A                               Em
He’s lying face down with those black dress day gents,

                    G                    A
Guns drawn running around in the early o-bits,

                  Em                        G
Say he was a good man, you can’t argue with that,

              A                  D
Not today you can’t, not now you can’t.

D             A                             Em
In the media tent, where they spin and they slant,

                       G                          A
They just foam at the mouth and they chomp at the bit,

                       Em                              G
Those bloodsuckers can wait, ‘till those vultures cool it,

           A                    D
The radio said, the President’s dead,

D                     A                       Em
And let’s imagine the day, let’s say 30 years in,

                  G                        A
How somebody will say what were you doing when,

               Em                   G
On a beautiful day I was waking up and

               A               D
I was lying in bed with my girlfriend

D                    A                    Em
And the eggs on the plate and the bacon hissing

                    G                             A
And the coffee was great, these was spring on the wind,

                            Em                     G
If you ever lived through a day where the littlest things,

                A                            D
in the littlest ways, made you feel you were blest.

D                     A                            Em
And if you died right then, well you know you’d be missed,

                      G                A
But there’s no better way to cease to exist,

                      Em                     G
And you wouldn’t feel sad and you wouldn’t resist,

                          A                         D
Because you knew what you had and were thankful for it,

D                  A                           Em
In your own little way, well I’m a small quiet man,

                    G                        A
I’ve got no wars to win, I don’t have a big plan,

                  Em                       G
But I love my new place and I love my old friends,

                   A                          D
And I scrimp and I save and one day I’ll have kids,

D                A                        Em
I can truthfully say that my day was like that,

                G                           A
‘till the radio playing on the stand by the bed,

                Em                            G
fired out this report and in three words they said,

                       A                     D A Em G
Like three shots to my head, the President’s dead.

                 D A Em G
The President’s dead.

                 D A Em G
The President’s dead.
D A Em G D A Em G That's it! This is my first tab, so I hope it works.