Billy From The Hills by Greg Brown, from "Slant 6 Mind" and "The Live One" Standard Tuning E A D G B E ----------- Em7 0 2 2 0 3 0 A x 0 2 2 2 0 Asus4 x 0 2 2 3 0 (used to augment A) Bm x 2 4 4 3 2 F 1 3 3 2 1 1 After listening to the version on "The Live One," I realized that Greg plays this with the high E string tuned down to D. If you'd like to play it this way, the fingerings are the same except for Em7, which is played like an Em in Standard Tuning: Drop-High-D Tuning E A D G B D ----------- Em7 0 2 2 0 0 0 Intro: Em7 A (4 x) Em7 A No one now knows too much about these woods; Em7 A they got lost, they wouldn't know where to go-- Em7 A Tribes been gone a long time, small farmers got blowed out-- Em7 A Maybe there ain't even that much left to know. Bm A You can strip the trees, fouls the streams, F try to hide in a progressive dream, Em7 ease into the comfort that kills. Bm A F Before I do that, I'll grab my pack and disappear Em7 Em7 A (2 x) with Billy from the hills. Blood flows back and back and back and back like a river from a secret source. I feel it wild in me, I pitched my camp at the fork where knowledge meets remorse. Women sing in me that song from the ancient fire. I just open my mouth and what comes out gives me chills. I got my song from a secret place. I got my face from Billy from the hills. A 40-inch barrel on that shotgun, steel traps in a cane pack on his back, 18 years old, surrounded by the Ozarks, ain't one little bit of that boy that's slack. If you're looking for a helping hand, he'll give you one, you know he will, If you're looking for trouble, huh-uh, turn around. You don't want to mess with Billy from the hills. Some folks dance cool, all angles and swaying hips, sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick and I dance like one-- I just kind of jump around and grin. I know a guy, he doesn't dance too much, but when he does he gives everyone a thrill. You might run away, or suck it up and stay, when he dances-- Billy from the hills. There's a lantern lit on a Missouri night, a woman writing poems by a stove. She knows the foxes whereabout by knoll, by gulch, by yelp-- as he runs at night through his mother love. Her memory to me is like watercress from a spring-fed stream, fresh and aching like a mochingbird's trill. She lives in me, I try to look until I can see-- for her and her boy--Billy from the hills. It's a drifting time, people are fascinated with screens, no idea what's on the other side. We stare at doom like an uptight groom, and live our lives like a drunken bride. Tonight I feel something on the wind, deep inside where we have to die or kill-- Something I know I didn't know I knew-- I learned from Billy from the hills. --------------- Submitted by Bob Steidl