Lather - Jefferson Airplane, guitar chords

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

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

    Eb          Bb       F
Commanding his very own tank.
    Eb           F          Gm                  Eb
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do to lie
   F               Gm
About nude in the sand

          Eb        F                          Gm
Making pictures of mountains that looked like bumps
F                               Cm
And thrashing the air with his hands.
      C                    Bb
But wait, old Lather’s productive, you know -
     C             Bb          C
- he produces the finest of sounds.
      C                      Bb
Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose,
     C         Bb          C
Snorting the best licks in town.

Cm Eb Bb Cm

Gm              Cm
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.

     Gm        F          Ab
And sometimes he’s so nameless,
    Eb          Bb           F
He hardly knows what game to play,
        Cm
What words to say.
         Eb         F        Gm
And I should have told him, "No, youʼre not old."

       Eb         F        Gm
And I should have let him go on-
    F       Gm
- smiling very wide.

Cm Gm