Doobie Brothers Long Train Running-- Where would you be now without love?

Check this out-- then I'll try it solo on the piano shortly.

{t:Long Train Running}
{st:Doobie Brothers}
{C:Intro  Gm7     Dm7  Gm7    Repeat these chords}

{c:Verse 1}
[Gm7]Down around the corner[Dm7]
A [Gm7]half A mile from here[Dm7]
You [Gm7]see them old trains runnin'[Dm7]
and you [Gm7]watch them disappear
     Without [Cm7]love  [Cm6]
     where would you be [Gm7]now  [Dm7]    [Gm7]
     Without [Eb]love   [Gm7]     [D7]

[Gm7]     [Dm7]   [Gm7]
You know I saw miss Lucy
down along the tracks
She lost her home and family
and she won't be comin' back
     Without love
     where would you be now
     Without love

{c:Verse 2}
Well the [Gm7]Illinois Central
[F#m7]and the [Gm7]Southern Central Freight
[F#m7]gotta [Gm7]keep on pushin' mama
[F#m7]'cause you [Gm7]know they're running late
     Without love
     where would you be now
     Without love

{c:Solo over verse 1 chords}

Well the Illinois Central
and the Southern Central Freight
gotta keep on pushin' mama
'cause you know they're running late
     Without love
     where would you be now
     Without love

{c:Verse 2 (hold final D7 chord)}
Where the pistons keep on charmin'
and the wheels go round' and round'
And the steel rails are cold and hard
for the miles they go around
     Without love
     where would you be right now
     Without love
     where would you be now?
{np}

Long Train Runnin Chords (ver 2) by Doobie Brothers @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com

Not bad-- leslyruga  Maybe someone at Seasons 52 can do it this way-- I don't know. It's really interesting to find people from anywhere and everywhere doing piano vocals for these famous rock songs from the seventies. I just looked for it on a lark and found this guy doing it. It's funny that I've never seen it done on cruise ship piano/singer loungers or duelling pianos-- because I think those venues are ALL hijacked by two guys from PHoenix-- who Dorothy sold a piano case to back in the early 80's to house a digital piano. All those duelling and ship people play the SAME TUNES... NEVER a tune like this. I'll find out more about that piano hijacking conspiracy in coming months and report my findings here. In the meantime, I'll work on my version of this tune and post it here soon.

Discussion and more video of Doobie Bros. in live performance on this tune

DOOBIE BROTHERS - Where would you be now

LYRICS
The lyrics seem to be flip flop between trains and the idea that our lives are positioned due to love of others. I didn't bother researching the origin of the lyrics-- that's just a quick observation. I like the train part of it-- and for what it's worth, the love of others as important to our lives is a truism. Combining the two ideas is an interesting juxtaposition.

ROMAN NUMERAL CHORD CHANGES
We may as well take the first chord as a "minored one" chord written as "i". But wait , there's more. Consider the flat seven. In the key of C, that's your Bb. So it's a I-chord with a flat 7 and a flat 3. Techincally it's called a minor 7 chord... so it could be written i-m7... .or i-7.  The entire song is based on the guitar strumming playing on the interesting combo of i-m7 to a sort of V-chord... but in this case it's a minored V... or small "v"... In C that would be G on the bottom with your flat7 as F, the minor-3 tone as Bb... and the D. The melody for the opening strum then becomes Eb to D over and over.  Add that fancy samba drumming back ground with congo and bongo-- as a 16-beat-- and there you have it. Why don't they write songs like this anymore? Stupid pop music today trashes it's own good history. If it weren't for youtubes like the above, these songs would be gone. That's an editorial comment-- also part of my piano "lessons".

Rick Potvin