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Not a lot to say about this one really. It’s a song about remembering not to forget, I guess. Musically it owes a great deal to the American Country sounds that form the backbone of what I’ve grown to know and love as ‘Glesga chantin’ in the club style’.
Glasgow has long been a haven for blues and country music and is widely regarded as the British home of country and western, though it often decamps en masse ‘doon the watter’ to Millport.
A curious hybrid form, Tartan & Western, has evolved here in the Central Belt that is most excellently purveyed, with disarming fixed grins, by the splendidly kilted Alexander Brothers. Their unforgettable version of Jim Reeves’ classic Nobody’s Child invariably reduced my Auntie May to tears whenever she crooned it. ‘Ham a’nobuddie’s Cha-hild…Jess la-hike a flow-er, ham a’ growing wa-hild…’
Actually it was American folk music that first sparked my own desire to learn the guitar and my early repertoire of songs included a whole raft of things not too unlike Riches And Rags. The recent realisation that it’s fine to sing this kind of music without putting on an American accent has brought a large slice of that stuff back into my set list. So far I’ve resisted the urge to sing Riches And Rags in the Glesga Club Style, but others might like to have a go.
(Played in G shapes with capo at 2nd fret)
G C
I was lyin’ awake by your side last night
G D D7
And I thought of all the changes that we’ve known
G C
Old enough now to know I love you
G D G
And we’ll walk that lonesome valley on our own
C
When you say you love me
G
That old sky above me
D D7 G G7
Opens up just like a morning flower for me
C
Ooh I’m wild about you
G
And I just couldn’t live without you
D D7 G
If I just had money I’d be poor
Time and tide they just roll along
And I don’t mind if they don’t wait for me
It feels like I just got my head back again
And I see how much we both let slip away
Won’t you let your body thrill me?
Won’t you move just fit to kill me?
I’ll be here waitin’ when that old sun goes down
Lie down hear beside me
Who knows the time just might be right
For fallin’ I love again
Life goes on with its old win and lose
And I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done
It’s all the same road just night and day
And it takes you round one time and then you’re gone
Chord Chart
G / / / I G / / / I C / / / I C / / / I
G / / / I G / / / I D / / / I D7 / / / I
G / / / I G / / / I C / / / I C / / / I
G / / / I D / / / I G / / / I G / / / I
C / / / I C / / / I G / / / I G / / / I
D / / / I D7 / / / I G / / / I G7 / / / I
C / / / I C / / / I G / / / I G / / / I
D / / / I D7 / / / I G / / / I G / / / I
Playing Tips
I play this song in G shapes with a capo at the 2nd fret, which means I’m in the key of A. The picking pattern is one commonly used by blues guitarists and was originally derived from an old gospel strumming technique known as ‘the church lick’. That’s done by strumming the downbeat on the bass strings with the thumb and striking the treble string upwards with the index finger on the off beat. It comes out as 1 & 2 & 3 & 4, or ‘flumpa flumpa flumpa flumpa’ as it was shown in the old Pete Seeger Guitar Book I first picked it up from many years ago. Out of that strum I’ve gradually managed to learn how to pick out a melody with my three fingers on the top 4 strings while keeping that downbeat going on the bass with my thumb - same rhythm as the Church Lick while picking single strings up on the top. The simple Church Lick strum is fine for doing this song though, or you can play it with a flat pick using that ‘bass and brush’ style that we often hear called The Carter Family Lick. Whatever blows your kilt up, really.
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