Rolling Stones › Rocks Off Guitar Tab

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Rocks Off Tab

Send "Rocks Off" Ringtone to your Cell Phone

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 21:12:26 -0500
From: Patrik_Lundström 
Subject: TAB: "Rocks off" by the Rolling Stones


R o c k s  o f f
(Jagger-Richards)

Transcribed by: Patrik Lundstrom, patrik.lundstrom@lund.mail.telia.com

About the song: This song is the opening track of the '72 double album 
                "Exile on Main St."

I know this this isn't exactly how Keith plays it, but this works
quite nice for me anyway. There is no need for the open G tuning
in my version but if you want to you can do so without having to
substitute too much of my tabing. Occasionally I tune down the 
A-string to a G which enables me to do Stones chording and still 
play lead on the higher strings the way I'm used to. Experiment
yourself. Since the right timing is hard to show in tablature, I
haven't even tried to get it right. Listen to the record and you
will get the feel. Last but not least, I'm not a very accomplished
guitar-player or Stones interpreter but I hope this will help 
someone to play one of the greatest songs of all times,

Patrik


intro:
3 times				     2 times
E--------------------------------:||-----------------------:||
B---9--9--10--9------------------:||---9--9--9------9------:||
G---9--9--9---9------------------:||---9--9--9------9------:||
D---9--9--11--9------------9--9--:||---9--9--9--11-----11--:||
A-----------------9--9--9--9--9--:||-----------------------:||
E-----------------6--6--6--7--7--:||-----------------------:||


fill 1:

E-------------------------------------|
B---9--9--9------9-------9---10--9----|
G---9--9--9------9-------9---9---9----|
D---9--9--9--11-----11---9---11--9----|
A-------------------------------------|
E-------------------------------------|


chorus:
8 times
E---------------:||-------|-------|
B---4--4--5--4--:||---2---|---9---|
G---4--4--4--4--:||---2---|---9---|
D---4--4--6--4--:||---2---|---9---|
A---------------:||-------|-------|
E---------------:||-------|-------|


chorus fill: (Bobby Keys' and Jim Price's parts actually)

E--------------------|
B--------------------|
G---13--13--11--10---|
D---15--15--13--11---|
A--------------------|
E--------------------|


That is all tab I will supply you with. Now on to lyrics and chords


verse:
	w/ fill 1	w/ fill 1
| A | B | E | E | A | B | E | E | A | A |

| A | A | B | B | B | B | A | E |


chorus:
w/ chorus part & fill when you feel like it
| B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | E | 


bridge:

| F#/A# | F#/A# | F# | F# | C#m | C#m |
| F#/A# | F#/A# | F# | F# | C#m | C#m | B | B |



I hear you talking when I'm on the street
Your mouth don't move but I can hear you speak
What's the matter with the boy 
He don't come around no more
Is he checking out for sure
Is he gonna close the door on me

I'm always hearing voices on the street
I want to shout but I can hardly speak
I was making love last night 
To a dancer friend of mine
I can't seem to stay in step
'Cause she come every time she pirouettes over me

But I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping
I only get my rocks off when I'm dreaming

I'm zipping through the days at lightning speed
Plug in flush out and fire that fucking feed
Heading for the overload
Splattered on a dusty road
Kick me like you kicked before
I can't even feel the pain no more

But I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping
I only get my rocks off when I'm dreaming

Feel so mesmerized can't describe that scene
Feel so hypnotized all that inside me

The sunshine bores the daylights out of me
Chasing shadows moonlight mystery
Heading for the overload
Splattered on a dusty road
Kick me like you kicked before
I can't even feel the pain no more

But I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping
I only get my rocks off when I'm dreaming

Brought to you by the GUITARMASTA - http://www.guitarmasta.net

Rocks Off Tab

Send "Rocks Off" Ringtone to your Cell Phone

Source: http://www.guitarmasta.net/r/rolling_stones,_the/302007.html

Tab Discussion, Comments, and Critiques


No Picture Sal Average	#1 by Sal With The Lights Out at Feb 28, 1974 at 12:54 PM EST
	But I only get my rocks off while I\'m dreaming, I only get my rocks off while I\'m sleeping. i think this song has a rather unique meaning :) ahh poor mick and his lack of viagra/cialis/other remember it is not safe to have erections for 4 or more hours and that if this occurs you need immediate medical attention haha......hmm its only the 4 of us.....guess not many baby boomers are into this site

No Picture Fatty [eats chi Average	#2 by Fatty [eats children] kid at Feb 20, 1978 at 12:40 PM EST
	Just what the song is about, I like it

No Picture Johan Average	#3 by Johan Soderberg at May 8, 1979 at 5:47 PM EST
	True, not great, but good because, well, it's the Stones. The shrieks at the end of certain words knock me out. Pretty images too. "You lovely ladies in your leather and lace, a thousand lips I would love to taste"

No Picture Steve Wanna Be	#4 by Steve Smyth at Oct 30, 1980 at 2:43 AM EST
	A goddamn great rock and roll song

No Picture Prince Alex Lead Player	#5 by Prince Alex at Aug 31, 1982 at 7:36 AM EST
	Actually I love this song man, the middle where the bands just messing around is golden right there

No Picture Ricky Rhythm Player	#6 by Ricky Cribb at Jan 28, 1986 at 2:03 AM EST
	I agree with what bmrhye said before as well. "It's only rock n' roll, but I like it"

No Picture GRIM Professional	#7 by GRIM at Jan 21, 1989 at 12:34 AM EST
	I think it's about people who think songs have to mean something all the time. I mean, there is nothing wrong with that, as you long as you have rock 'n' roll and don't take life so seriously all the time. That's what it's about to me.

No Picture Speed Demon Professional	#8 by Speed Demon at Jul 5, 1989 at 3:06 AM EST
	Can you call this a great song? Maybe not. It's at least very good.

No Picture James Wanna Be	#9 by James Pigott at Mar 11, 1991 at 4:40 AM EST
	If I could dig down deep in my heart Feelings would flood on the page brilliant

No Picture Will Wanna Be	#10 by Will Hay at Dec 21, 1992 at 11:21 AM EST
	This song is great. They still play it in concert all the time. It's a good opener on a good album but when you compare it to other stones classics it's not in the league of them but it's cool.

No Picture adg Average	#11 by adg ??? at Aug 24, 1997 at 7:24 PM EST
	This is in my opinion the best Stones song of all times. It compines the sheer power of the stones with the funkiness of the brass band

No Picture cody Average	#12 by cody jay at Sep 19, 1998 at 10:23 AM EST
	actually there IS a story behind this one--Mick was married to Bianca at the time, and she was slagging him--"you take this too seriously..its only rock and roll, blah blah blah..."..so Mick wrote this classic in response

No Picture steven Lead Player	#13 by steven ratliff at Jun 11, 2002 at 8:20 PM EST
	To me this song is at once celebratory and miserable & jaded. The singer of the song has led a life of such excess that things that were once great fun now just don't do anything for him. In fact he's so jaded that even things that used to cause him pain don't make him feel anything anymore. His only escape, his only way of getting any kind of 'satisfaction' is to escape into his dreams, into sleep. God, what a fucking horrible thing to have happen to you. And yet, somehow the song, the music, seems so celebratory, maybe ironically so. I dunno, it's a really great song though, pretty mature thinking.

No Picture dann Average	#14 by dann at Jan 24, 2003 at 12:13 PM EST
	Ah now that was funny! What's even funnier is just tonight I heard on the news how viagra and cialis and that other hard-on pill are causing blindness!

No Picture spence Average	#15 by spence o'brien at Feb 2, 2005 at 9:08 PM EST
	This song gets me going...I had Exile on Main St. on repeat on my CD player with my headphones around my neck blasting the music on a school field trip to the Bronx Zoo and was doing coke on the bus there and in the bathroom once I arrived, then ate a pot brownie which held me over four ours. This reminds me of my cocaine days, no doubt. It's so cool. Does anyone know what "fire the fuckin' feed" means? I assume he's using the word feed as "to gratify" and he's firing it, that is, firing up the means to gratify himself. I think the song's about being really busy all the time, whether it be work or hard drugs, and only having fun when you're asleep and dreaming. I'm not British, and I've heard the word "daylights" used only twice: Once in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights when Bond is like "mustve scared the living daylights out of him" and now this. Does it mean "shit", like bore the shit out of me? Or does it just mean something like consciousness? Same with "rocks off", which I'm assuming is an English term. Does it literally mean ejaculate or is it just having a good time?

No Picture duncan_player Wanna Be	#16 by duncan_player at Jul 6, 2006 at 9:33 PM EST
	ODD but true. Ronnie Wood who wasn't in the band at the time--It's only Rock and Roll was Taylor's last RS album--- did the majority of guitar work on this #. Good song, but clearly a notch below the great numbers of the past decade......But I Like IT!

No Picture Erik Lead Player	#17 by Erik StJimmy at Nov 29, 2006 at 1:08 PM EST
	This is such an amazing Stones song. Anything off of Exile On Main Street is a real treat. It was funny, cause as soon as I threw this in the speakers in Gym class, a classmate claimed 'this song sounds like summer', now I always think of that! The horns go together so nicely with it, too.