O My Soul

And now for the piece de resistance, Alex Chilton's guitar spotlight from

_Radio_City_. I have no idea why this was recorded in mono. Anyway, this

godlike slab of pop-funk kicks off a great album and is a phenomenal amount of

fun to play. And I tried my absolute damnedest to get as complete and accurate

a transcription as I could possibly get without asking Chilton himself (he

refuses to return my calls). Notes:

1) You've got it easy on this one. One guitar. No more, no less. The entire

instrumentation for this is: one guitar, one bass, drums, and an organ.

That's it. I'm killing the organ for this transcription.

2) Chilton's tone in this song is clean but wet. I don't know how else to

describe it, just... wet. It sounds like it may have been drenched in slap-

back echo (which aids in the almost percussive-like nature of the guitar),

but that's a fairly uninformed guess. But it sure sounds great, whatever it

is.

3) This is a song that you kinda have to work at. Sliding up to an A on the E

string and then playing the open A string takes a bit of practice (but it's

a great technique). Also, those A6 chords aren't too easy to get every time

if you're not used to it. If you've played Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" or the

Ren & Stimpy theme, this is the same chord: x07675. If you have problems

with this chord, try an open A6, which looks like this: x02222. It will

give you a close approximation of the chord (the only major difference is

that you won't hit that high A, which is kinda important but not earth-

shatteringly so). In any case, it's what the organ's playing, so you'll at

least be doing something correctly. Still, try to get the 5th position A6

and 7th position one. The song'll sound better and you'll be happier, as

the chords are sure to come in handy in the future.

4) *I* can't play and sing this at the same time. Chilton really strains his

voice here (and on the rest of the album - "Morpha Too" is quite obviously

too high for him), and he's already got a higher range than a lot of men.

That, plus the fact that the guitar and vocals have vastly different

rhythms, will make singing and playing difficult. Don't necessarily give

up. I'm just warning you.

5) The intro is a bitch. Not the shapes, but the timing. I still have problems

with it. Practice, practice, practice.

6) I've kinda left out a lot of the percussive string scratching. I suppose I

coulda pointed out every little bit, but that woulda been more than silly.

You really have to go with the feel on this one.

7) The outro isn't really played, I think. Best I can figure is that they left

the drum and bass tracks the same and started screwing around with the tape

of the guitar track to get the sounds. If not, I've given you the basic

notes for this part. It's weird. Tremelo pick it to get it close.

8) Okay, I give up. What *is* Chilton saying right before "Go on and have a

good time?"

9) I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that this song is what

rock and roll is all about. Full stop. End of story.

"O My Soul" (Alex Chilton)

Performed by Big Star