Rosanne Cash - "The Summer I Read Colette"

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'The Summer I Read Colette' by Roseanne Cash.

Recorded on the cd 'Ten Song Demo' on Capitol, 1996.
With thanks to David for working this out.

Chords strings 123456
D 2320xx
Dsus4 3320xx
Dsus2 0320xx
Asus4 03220x
The other chords are as you would expect.

Intro D Dsus4 D Dsus2....repeated.

Verse 0ne.
D Dsus4 D Dsus2
That was the summer that followed the spring,
D Dsus4 D Dsus2
Sad anniversary of a thousand old things,

D G G/F#bass Em
I was letting them go.

The words of Colette amd a strange new perfume,
Were drenching my senses and filling the room,

The heat in our bodies, the light in our eyes,
First the surrender, and then we could fly,

We were letting it go.

(chorus)
A Bm E
We're blinded to the beauty in our own lives,
G A
But I was taking all that I could get,
Bm E
For five or six hours in the month of July,
Asus4 D
......The summer I read Colette.

(Repeat intro, then into verse two)

The time was a line and we learned how to crawl,
Our bones were a prison and our memory involved,
If it weren't for the past I'd feel nothing at all,
Now I'm letting it go.

It's more than survival, the lesson in hand,
For I found salvation was quite a surprise,
That was the summer that followed the spring,
A new way of feeling a million old things.

(chorus)

G A Bm
(**Bass note run up G A B C# D)
And I found Paris one hundred years late,
A/C#bass G/Dbass
Colette is sleeping in Pere Lachaise,
A
My ear to the stone,
G G/F#bass
(**Bass note run down G F# E)
I could hear her saying 'Nous nous reveillons'

Em....then back to intro....Instrumental...

I sold my silver to get myself there,
To a room with a candle up three flights of stairs.
That was the summer I let it all go,
To fill up my body with my heart and my soul.

(chorus)

Notes.
Pere Lachaise is the big cemetary in Paris, and 'nous
nous reveillons' means 'we will wake up'.
I could have misheard some of the words. They aren't
printed on the cd cover, so be careful.
If this seems confusing, listen to the cd a couple of
times and the chords and bass runs should make sense.

1 Comments

  • Tom

    Excellent on nailing Pere Lachaise. "nous nous reveillons" may actually be nous nouv revellions, "we are waking up again", the creative wild women of the song's current day as represented by the young Ms. C.