Introducing this tab | Chords used | Ringing riff | Bass riff | Lyrics with chords | Endnote
Chord symbols below have been simplified. The diagrams below show the detailed version of the "C", "G", and "D" used in the text. There are indeed names for these chords but let's aim for the lowest common denominator, which I am numbering myself among. The Em7 and Am7 are regular versions of these chords. As always this is approximate and nothing is exact. The idea is that this is a starting point. Dig out the CD and play along.
I am assuming a standard tuning for this song.
The "G" The "C" The "D" E--3 E--3 E--3 B--3 B--3 B--3 G--0 G--0 G--2 D--0 D--2 D--0 A--2 A--3 A--X E--3 E--X E--X
For the ringing two notes in the riff, try playing both the B then the top E string while strumming a suitably bouncy rhythm. If that's too easy for you, try adding the bass riff as well:
For the bass note riff, the tab looks like this (where => means hammer onto the following note):
1-------------------- 2-------------------- 3-----------------0-- 4---------------0---- 5--0 => 2 => 3------- 6--------------------
C G
C G
C G
I'm sipping Flor De Caņa and lime juice, it's three a.m.
C G
Blow a fruit fly off the rim of my glass
C G
The radio's playing Superchunk and the friends of Dean Martinez
D CC G
C G
Midnight it was bike tires whacking the pot holes
C G
Milling humans' shivering energy glow
C G
Fusing the space between them with bar-throb bass and laughter
D CC G
CHORUS:
Em7 C G
If this were the last night of the world
Em7 C G
What would I do?
Em7 C G
What would I do that was different
Am7 D G
Unless it was champagne with you?
C G
I learned as a child not to trust in my body
C G
I've carried that burden through my life
C G
But there's a day when we all have to be pried loose
D CC G
CHORUS
C G
I've seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
C G
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all
C G
That was the straw that broke me open
D CC G
CHORUS
Last Night Of The World was written by Bruce Cockburn on an unknown date. It appears on one of his albums: "Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu" (1999)
To give you an idea of what the 'Bruce Cockburn on Bruce Cockburn' Project website's main focus is, as of September 1999, the Project had tracked down the following comments about this song by Cockburn:
"In the last verse I was thinking specifically of refugees I had encountered back in 1983 in the south of Mexico. They had fled terrible things, were being starved and dying of disease. It couldn't get much worse, yet they faced their plight with discipline and this eternal flame of hope. It was such a poignant thing to witness. It made a huge impression on me. Whenever I get the feeling that things in life are hopeless, I only have to think of that. If those people could have hope in their circumstances it's ridiculously decadent for us not to have it. In that sense it 'broke me open' - put a big crack in the cynicism and lowered expectations that we grow up with in a culture like ours. Flor de Caña is the world's best rum. It comes from Nicaragua and Honduras, and every now and then somebody brings me a bottle."
- from "Bruce Cockburn, Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu", Ryko press release, undated, circa August 1999. Submitted by Nigel Parry.
BC: "Just a note of explanation in the first line of the song it mentions Flora de Caña, Flora de Caña is the best rum in the world and it comes from Nicaragua. I'm not saying anything about Florida, which some people have thought, or anything about Canada so (mumbles) that's what I'm saying when I say that line, I just thought you'd know this early in the morning, in case my annunciation's a little tired..."
Laura Ellen: "So I gotta know, I heard that song for the first time and I
thought OH that's the millenium song"
BC: [laughs] "I guess!?....everybody's doing it!
Laura Ellen: "I guess! Well, it does actually, if you've got to do one that's
a nice one to do. But, oh good, finally somebody did one that we kind of
play..."
BC: "Well, it seemed to me, you know, with all the fuss being made, I'm not sure I was really thinking this when I wrote the song, but it certainly has occured to me since, that, you know, with all the fuss that everybody's making about it, everything from, you know, going out and burying gold in your backyard, to going off and living in a cave with a big pile of ammunition, ehh, you sort of, it's kind of missing the point, you know, I mean if it really IS the end of things as we know it, there are other responses that might be more, more appropropriate and one of them, would be to, to live to fullest, between now and then, you know, including right up to the moment and that's sort of, its, you know, it's kind of in response to that panic thinking I think, you know, there's uh there's an end of the world for each of us, at some point that we won't know is coming until it gets there..."
Laura Ellen: "So that millineium thing actually gives you a sense of security.Thinking that's going to be the last, I mean, you know....right?"
BC: "Well, I don't know that I'd quite ascribe to that notion but (laughs) but it certainly doesn't give me much of a sense of insecurity, let's put it that way, I don't think it's about that, um, I also don't think it's going to be as bad as people think it is on this continent at least anyway, there might be parts of the world where it is."
- from an interview/live performance with Laura Ellen, "Live in the Sty" programme, KPIG radio station, Freedom, California, 24 August 1999. Anonymous submission.
Have fun with this tab and be sure to visit the 'Bruce Cockburn on Bruce Cockburn' Project at http://www.nigelparry.com/brucecockburn/ for lyrics, BC's comments on his songs and albums, gig news and links to other Cockburn websites. for more Bruce Cockburn guitar tablature, visit Gavin Mudd's excellent archive of tablature and chords to Bruce Cockburn songs, including links to other tab sites at http://www.netspace.net.au/~angelb/cockburn/tab/BCTab.html
Nigel Parry, cockburnproject@nigelparry.com