Lather - Jefferson Airplane, guitar chords

Published: 2017-02-08 15:34
Selection chords: Katie Paterson

Bm         D        A             F#m        E          Bm
Lather was 30 years old today, they took away all of his toys.
    Bm           D       A
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him
          F#m                E         Bm
About his old friends whoʼd stopped being boys (paper dolls!).
         F#m       E             G
There was Howard C. Green, just turned 33 -
     D          A           E
His leather chair waits at the bank.
    F#m           E        G
And Sergeant Dow Jones, 27 years old -

    D          A       E
Commanding his very own tank.
    D           E          F#m                  D
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do to lie
   E               F#m
About nude in the sand

          D        E                          F#m
Making pictures of mountains that looked like bumps
E                               Bm
And thrashing the air with his hands.
      B                    A
But wait, old Lather’s productive, you know -
     B             A          B
- he produces the finest of sounds.
      B                      A
Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose,
     B         A          B
Snorting the best licks in town.

Bm D A Bm

F#m              Bm
But thatʼs all over.  (Child!)

Lather was 30 years old today
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
He looked at me, eyes wide, & plainly say,
"Is it true that Iʼm no longer young?" (Mommy?)
And the children call him famous -
What the old men call insane.

     F#m        E          G
And sometimes he’s so nameless,
    D          A           E
He hardly knows what game to play,
        Bm
What words to say.
         D         E        F#m
And I should have told him, "No, youʼre not old."

       D         E        F#m
And I should have let him go on-
    E       F#m
- smiling very wide.

Bm F#m