Going To Alaska chords by The Mountain Goats

Taboo VI: The Homecoming - Going To Alaska

For live versions, in standard tuning either go with above or:
A D A E
or
E A E B

for the main pattern

Album Version:

-1/2 step

G C G D  G C G D

G                C
The jacaranda are wet with color,
        G                            D
and the heat is a great paint brush, lending color to our lives,
     G                                C
to the air, and to out faces; but I'm going to Alaska
              G                         D
where there's snow to suck the sound out from the air.

C G

G       C
Up, yes, in the branches,
G                       D
the purple blossoms, go pale at the edges;
         G                              C
there is moaning in the shifting of the sap, and I see in them traces
G                           D
of last year, but then they hadn't grown so strong,
G                                    C
and their limbs were more like wires. Now they are cables.
G                           D                    G
thick and alive with alien electricity, and I am going to Alaska,
     C                         G
where you can go blind just by looking at the ground,
D
where fat is eaten by itself
C                         G
just to keep your body warm.

G                         C
Because from where we are now, it seems, really,
    G                           D
that everything is growing in a thousand different ways;
G                                        C
that the soil is soaked through with old blood and with relatives
G                                           D
who were buried here, or close to here, and they are giving rise
G                                C
to what is happening. Or can you tell me otherwise?
     G                          D
I am going to Alaska, where the animals can kill you,
        G                     C
but they do so in silence, as though if no-one hears them,
        G                         D
then it really won't matter. I am going to Alaska.
C                                     G
They tell me that it's perfect for my purposes.

G C G D