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