Disclaimer: The following tab is intended for private enjoyment and educational purposes and should not be read as an encouragement for members of the general public to play the song live. The lyrics and music of "Isn't That What Friends Are For?" are the intellectual property of Bruce Cockburn, his management, and record companies, etc,.
More tab to share, I mean Isn't That What Friends Are For? Transcribed from the Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu album
Drop F# tuning (low EADF#BE high) Capo V
A x0232x (bar 2nd fret with index finger) E 02222x Bmsus x20000 Bm9sus x20020 Bm7sus x20300 A+9 x02300
(listen to the song to get the feel):
A
, , , , , ,
||-----------------------|------------------------|
||2--------------------2h|3-------2-------0-------|
||3----------------------|------------------------|
||2--------------------2h|4-------2-------0-------|
||0-------------------0--|------------------------|
||-----------------------|------------------------|
E
, , , , , ,
|-----------------------|------------------------|
|-----------------------|2-------0---------------|
|2------(2)-----(2)-----|----------------3-------|
|2------(2)-----(2)-----|2-------0------(0)------|
|2------(2)-----(2)-----|----------------4-------|
|0--------------------0-|------------------------|
Bmsus Bm9sus
, , , , , ,
|-------(0)-----(0)--0--|-------(0)-----(0)---0--||
|-------(0)-----(0)-----|2------(2)-----(2)------||
|0------(0)-----(0)-----|-------(0)-----(0)------||
|0----------------------|------------------------||
|2----------------------|2-----------------------||
|-----------------------|------------------------||
Bm7sus Bm9sus
, , , , , ,
|-------(0)-----(0)--0--|-------(0)-----(0)------||
|-------(0)-----(0)-----|-------(2)-----(2)------||
|3------(3)-----(3)-----|0------(0)-----(0)------||
|-----------------------|------------------------||
|2----------------------|2-----------------------||
|-----------------------|------------------------||
repeat
A A6+9 Bmsus Bm9sus (repeat chord progression)
I look west along the red road of the frail sun
to where it hovers between shelf of cloud
and spiky trees, receding shore
The world is full of seasons
of anguish, of laughter
and it comes to mind to write you this
Nothing is sure
nothing is pure
and no matter who we think we are
everyone gets his chance to be
nothing
Love's supposed to heal
but it breaks my heart to feel the pain in your voice
but you know
it's all going somewhere
and I would crush my heart and throw it in the street
if I could pay for your choice
Chorus:
Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?
We're the insect life of paradise
crawl across leaf or among
towering blades of grass
glimpse only sometimes the amazing
breadth of heaven
You're as loved as you were
before the strangeness swept through
our bodies, our houses, our streets
when we could speak without codes
and light swirled around like
wind-blown petals at our feet
I've been scraping little shavings
off my ration of light
and I've formed it into a ball
and each time I pack a bit more onto it
and I make a bowl of my hands and
I scoop it from its secret cache
under a loose board in the floor
and I blow across it and I send it to you
against those moments when the darkness
blows under your door
Chorus
Isn't that what friends are for?