Coal-train Robberies Chords
Coal-train Robberies by Elvis Costello is a moderately challenging guitar song played in the key of Am. It uses the chords Am, G, F, C, E, E7 and Dm. Use the transpose and diagram tools on this page to change the key, see each shape, or simplify the chords.
verse 1
Am G
Yesterday's coal train came to rest in the bitter
F
Cutting
C G F G E
And as the signals took an age to change it was
E7
Easy pickings
F
So you go to the movies where they smash it up
G
You want to feel your heart pumping it makes
You feel good
C G
All through the karaoke girls were squealing
The hits
C G E E7
As another Mercedes-Benz gets blown to bits
Am G
While all the time in the camp town theaters
F
Of Piccadilly
C G F
They're going to throw a black-face minstrel
G E
Show for the barefoot children
E7
That they're always selling
F
They'll say "It's quaint" as the guilty ones faint
G
And claim they ain't underneath this paint
C G
We interrupt these liberal saints with their
F E
Whips and watermelon
Am F Dm G
Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
Am F Dm G
It's like another world, or it had better be
Am G
So we return to whitewashed pout of his
F
Committed lips
C G F
Since he was declared the long lost fountain
G E E7
Of youth that drips and drips and drips
F
They'll be sending him round from door to door
G
To sell you back what's already yours
C G
"So many good deeds, so little time"
C G E E7
Say the advertising agency swine
F
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
G
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
C G
If you don't believe that I'm going for good
C G
You can count the days I'm gone and chop up
E E7
The chairs for firewood
Am F Dm G
Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
Am F Dm G
It's like another world, or it had better be