Thunderbird Guitar Tabs by Seasick Steve

Seasick Steve – Thunderbird
From the album ‘I Started Out With Nothin’ And I Got Most Of It Left’ and the EP ‘It’s 
good’

Tuning – This is a tricky one, technically all you need to do is drop your A down to a G
Steve plays it on his 3-stringed guitar, but if you want to play all raw and ramshackle
Steve does, I’d recommend tuning to open G (DGDGBD) so if you hit the 1st or 6th strings 
at least be in the right key. Don’t be afraid of hitting the middle D string, it
fine since it’s just adding the 5th to the G chord that makes up most of the song. 
if you have a no-name 3-stringed guitar it will be much easier!

To get the tone of the 3-string Trance Wonder use your neck pickup and fingers and crank 
gain.

Intro/Verse

“Goin’ up north…”

D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--5h6---6-6-6-6--5--3----------------------------|
G|----0---0-0-0-0--0--0----------------------------| x8
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|-0--0---0-0-0-0--0--0—0h3------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|

Chorus

“Stealin’ Thunderbird…”

D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|----11---8--6--6-6--6-8--------------------------|
G|----0----0--0--0-0--0-0--------------------------| x8
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|-0--0----0--0--0-0--0----------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|

Repeat the verse and chorus

Breakdown

D|--------------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------------|
G|------0-------------------------------------------|
D|--------------------------------------------------|
G|--0-----0h3---(x16)—12----------------------------|-(hit string to beat whilst
D|-------------------------sliding to 0)------------|

Repeat breakdown, then go back into the chorus


Bridge

D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--0----------------------------------------------|
G|--0----------------------------------------------|
D|--------(strum for 2 bars, use fretting hand-----|
G|--0------to grab your slide!)--------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|

Slide break

D|-------------------------------------------------|
B|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------|
G|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------| x2
D|-------------------------------------------------|
G|--0-/--12-0--0--0--0-/-12-0----------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------|

After this, just ad lib sliding those 3 open string notes between open, 3rd and 12th fret.

That’s it, remember, the more rough and out of control the better!

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