Guitar Man by Elvis Presley

Artist: Elvis Presley

Genre: Pop

Length: 2:19

‘Guitar Man’ was originally written and recorded by Jerry Reed, a highly capable fingerstyle guitarist. Reed also played the lead guitar on the Elvis record, after Elvis supposedly wasn’t satisfied with the guitar in his version and wanted it so sound more like Reed’s recording. For Guitar Man, Reed tuned his guitar in an unconventional way, tuning a half step down from Drop D, only the B string is tuned up to a C. His signature picking style, which he also used to play ‘Guitar Man’, is calle...

Guitar Man lyrics

Well, I quit my job down at the car wash
Left my mama a goodbye note
By sundown I'd left Kingston
With my guitar under my coat
I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis
Got a room at the YMCA
For the next three weeks I went huntin' them nights
Just lookin' for a place to play
Well, I thought my pickin' would set 'em on fire
But nobody wanted to hire a guitar man.
Well, I nearly 'bout starved to death down in Memphis
I run outta money and luck
So I bought me a ride down to Macon, Georgia
On a overloaded poultry truck
I thumbed on down to Panama City
Started pickin' out some o' them all night bars
Hopin' I could make myself a dollar
Makin' music on my guitar
I got the same old story at them all my peers
There ain't no room around here for a guitar man
We don't need a guitar man, son
So I slept in the hobo jungles
Roamed a thousand miles off track
Till I found myself in Mobile Alabama
At a club they call Big Jack's
A little four-piece band was jammin'
So I took my guitar and I sat in
I showed 'em what a band would sound like
With a swingin' little guitar man.
Show 'em, son
If you ever take a trip down to the ocean
Find yourself down around Mobile
Make it on out to a club called Jack's
If you got a little time to kill
Just follow that crowd of people
You'll wind up out on his dance floor
Diggin' the finest little five-piece group
Up and down the Gulf of Mexico
Guess who's leadin' that five-piece band
Well, wouldn't ya know, it's that swingin' little guitar man.

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