Starman - David Bowie.

I've always been a fan of Bowie's, but particularly his earlier work; I love Mick Ronson's lead work, and also Bowie played a lot of acoustic guitar in the early days, and the two guitars meshed together beautifully for me. This song can be played a couple of ways....the original is mostly barre chords (including Bb, Gm and Ab which can't be played as open chords...) so I've tried to simplify it a little by using a capo. There are still a couple of barres in there - can't seem to do the song without a Gm, but apart from that there's only really a Bm and an F#m to worry about, and they're both at the same fret and you change from one to the other.

Anyway, if you want to play in the same key as the original, slap a capo on the third fret and away we go.....

Starman - David Bowie

Intro - G D G D (two bars of each chord)
(Bowie mutters something under his breath, but I'm damned if I can make out what it is!)

1st Verse...........

(NOTE - all chords are relative to the capo, so an F#m chord, for instance, which is 244222 will actually be an Am chord with the barre across the 5th fret - 577555.)

(Em)Didn't know what time it was, the lights were low - oh - (D)oh,
(D)I leaned back on my radio - oh - (A)oh,
(A)Some cat was layin' down some (A7)rock'n'roll, lotta soul, he said,(D)(F)(G)
(Em)Then the loud sound did seem to fa - a - (D)ade,
(D)Came back like a slow voice on a wave of pha - a - (A)ase,
(A)That was no D.J. that was (A7)hazy cosmic jive,(F#m)(E)

There's a little one-note solo played over the F#m and E chords - all on the B string at the 10th fret. (Sounds almost like morse code to me - anyone know?)

CHORUS

(E)There's a (D)starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He'd (F#m)like to come and (A)meet us,
But he (A7)thinks he'd blow our minds,
There's a (D)starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He (F#m)told us not to (A)blow it,
'Cause he (A7)knows it's all worthwhile, he told me,
(G)"Let the (Gm)children lose it,
(D)Let the (Bm7)children use it,
(Em)Let all the (A)children boogie!"

There's a fairly simple solo here - note that the chords are relative to the capo, but the notes in the solo are NOT - they are the real positions on the fretboard. It's easier to think "B string, 9th fret" than it is to think "B string, 6 frets up from the capo."
G D A D (Rhythm Chords)
E |----------------------------------|
B |----------------------------------|
G |-7-7-5---------5-9-9-7-5-------5--|
D |-------8-7-7-8-----------7-7-8----|
A |----------------------------------|
E |----------------------------------|

G D A Em - start of verse 2
E |----------------------------------|
B |----------------------------------|
G |-7-7-5---------5-9-9-7-5----------|
D |-------8-7-7-8-----------7-(Em)---|
A |----------------------------------|
E |----------------------------------|

2nd verse......

(Em)I had to phone someone so I picked on you - oo - (D)ooh,
(D)Hey, that's far out so you heard him too - oo - (A)ooh,
(A)Switch on the TV we may (A7)pick him up on channel (D)two,(F)(G)
(Em)Look out your window I can see his li - i - (D)ight,
(D)If we can sparkle he may land toni - i - (A)ight,
(A)Don't tell your poppa or he'll (A7)get us locked up in fright,(F#m)(E)

Again, that one-note morse code solo is played over the F#m and E chords.

CHORUS

(E)There's a (D)starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He'd (F#m)like to come and (A)meet us,
But he (A7)thinks he'd blow our minds,
There's a (D)starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He (F#m)told us not to (A)blow it,
'Cause he (A7)knows it's all worthwhile, he told me,
(G)"Let the (Gm)children lose it,
(D)Let the (Bm7)children use it,
(Em)Let all the (A)children boogie!"

(D)Starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He'd (F#m)like to come and (A)meet us,
But he (A7)thinks he'd blow our minds,
There's a (D)starman (Bm)waiting in the sky,
He (F#m)told us not to (A)blow it,
'Cause he (A7)knows it's all worthwhile, he told me,
(G)"Let the (Gm)children lose it,
(D)Let the (Bm7)children use it,
(Em)Let all the (A)children boogie!"

Repeat solo, singing la-la-la-la over the top of it and fade out........

Oh yeah - and if you don't want to muck about with a capo, and you're confident enough to play this with barre chords, all you have to do is raise the pitch of the chords written above by three semitones....ie instead of Em (capoed) you'd play Gm as a barre chord, etc.

:D :D :D

Vic