Hummingbird Chords Guitar Tab

"A Ghost Is Born" (EP) Tabs:

Tabs interpretation by Pau Arumí (parumi at iua dot upf dot es)
Corrections are more than wellcome.
---
Hummingbird (Wilco)
C  Cmaj7 x2
C       Cmaj7             C    Cmaj7
His goal in life was to be an echo
C                  Em               Dm
Riding alone, town after town, toll after toll
Fm                                              C       Cmaj7 C  Cmaj7
A fixed bayonet through the great southwest to forget her
C    Cmaj7    Em     G
She appears in his dreams
Am                          Am(Maj7)
But in his car and in his arms
Dm          Dm/f
A dream can mean anything
Fm                                     Eb
A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her
G
But he never could
Em          E/d
Remember to remember me
Em               E/d
Standing still in your past
E/d#                 C
Floating fast like a hummingbird
G       G/f#              Em    G/f#
His goal in life was to be an echo
G                                 G/f#
The type of sound that floats around and then back down
Am
Like a feather
Cm
But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
G
No one could hear him
D
Or anything
G  G/f#    Bm       D
So he slept on a mountain
Em                          Em/f#
In a sleeping bag underneath the stars
Am          C
He would lie awake and count them
Cm
And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way
Bb
Would never let him
D
Die alone
G          Bm
Remember to remember me
Em               G7
Standing still in your past
C                     D
Floating fast like a hummingbird
G           Bm
Remember to remember me
Em               G7
Standing still in your past
C                D
Floating fast like a hummingbird
A hummingbird
A hummingbird
(Violin part)
G  G/f#  Bm  Em Em(Maj7)  Am  Cm
G  G/f#  Bm  Em Em(Maj7)  Am  Cm  Cm
Bb  D
-----------------------
Am(Maj7)        002110
Em(Maj7)        021000
G/f#            220033
E/d             020000
E/d#            021000
Eb              668886
Cmaj7           032000

Source: GuitarMasta.net
http://www.guitarmasta.net/w/wilco/.html

Tab Discussion, Comments, and Critiques


No Picture Harvey Rhythm Player	#1 by Harvey Puentes at Oct 2, 2007 at 12:48 AM EST
	I'd say that an echo is more important and lasting than a word just spoken and swallowed by silence, no?

No Picture Freddy Badass	#2 by Freddy Timmons at Oct 2, 2007 at 9:51 PM EST
	REEFPADDLER, again you've found it. Totally reminds me of "A Day in the Life".

No Picture metal-cat Average	#3 by metal-cat stepheria at Oct 3, 2007 at 5:18 AM EST
	I think the main point of this song is that in nature, you're never alone. But in towns (Riding alone, town after town, toll after toll) and in society, you'll be alone and forgotton. Standing still in someone's past, like a hummingbird. You'll be alone in a crowd, always thinking about that one person you loved, and the special people you'll never forget. and you wonder if they're thinking about you.

No Picture Maggot Man Wanna Be	#4 by Maggot Man at Oct 3, 2007 at 12:05 PM EST
	i thought it was about a guy who loved a girl, but she didnt love him back. he stands still in her past as she floats around like a hummingbird "A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her But he never could" he wanted it to be meaningful, but it wouldnt happen

No Picture slapslappopslap Badass	#5 by slapslappopslap at Oct 5, 2007 at 7:52 AM EST
	A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her i dont know exactly why but i really like this line. especially how it repeats the word 'set'... kind of like an echo. hehe.

No Picture Len Badass	#6 by Len cullum at Oct 5, 2007 at 5:56 PM EST
	Does this song remind anyone of The Beatles, "A Day in the Life?" It just has the sound and flow of it I think.

No Picture Matt Average	#7 by Matt Waas at Oct 7, 2007 at 8:34 PM EST
	This song paints a perfect picture of how I felt after my boyfriend left me. I decided to leave town because I couldn't be close to him anymore. Every time I go back I feel suffocated just by seeing him. The "standing still in your past, floating fast" line, just makes me think of me. I was standing there waiting for him and also it was like I was treading water, trying to keep my head above. He was in one place, just floating around, like in circles or something, waiting for her, like a hummingbird. For me, my move away from him, allowed me to escape from people even knowing, I don't have a constant reminder. I think that's what Jeff was trying to portray, even though he can't stop thinking about her.

No Picture Matt Lead Player	#8 by Matt Beach at Oct 8, 2007 at 9:38 PM EST
	To me this song is about someone who doesnt really want to be all that noticed, persay, or perhaps he has admitted tht he just isnt that important to people, and so he just wants to be an echo. Maybe not a memory in the foregroud, but it still reverberated in someones mind. but he does want to be remembered, because he has someone in his life that he loved, but who never cared much for him, and he doesnt want that to happen to anyone else, least of all him, thought it already has. So thanperson just hovers in his memory, those moments where he thought he was happy, they hang there, and they echo.

No Picture tom Average	#9 by tom jenkins at Oct 9, 2007 at 6:57 AM EST
	This song is soo beautiful.... "Remember to remember me Standing still in your past Floating fast like a hummingbird" Favorite part of the whole song!!!

No Picture chris the pirat Lead Player	#10 by chris the pirate. arr at Oct 9, 2007 at 7:52 AM EST
	the song seems like this guy wanted to be remembered by all his peers after high school, but he suffered from some sort of heartbreak and maybe commited suicide..?

No Picture Austin Average	#11 by Austin Schrauben at Oct 11, 2007 at 11:00 AM EST
	"Deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans" coupled with the song "Hell is Chrome"... I guess it does make sense that he gets lost in the chrome hell of the cities and lives well in the country. in "Hell is Chrome" the devil (who is not red, he is chrome) takes him "where everything was clean/so precise and towering"--obviously a city. However, when he gets there he "was welcomed with open arms/ [he] received so much help in every way / [he] felt no fear / the air was crisp / like sunny late-winter days / springtime yawining high in the haze / and I felt like I belong"--so he fits in and people notice and care about him. However, notice who took him there. He is WITH THE DEVIL when all these people welcome him and help him. I'm posting this under "Hell is Chrome" as well because they tie together so much.

No Picture Joshua Wanna Be	#12 by Joshua graham at Oct 11, 2007 at 11:02 AM EST
	to me this song is about a guy that got dumped by this girl he was crazy about. he prolly wanted to marry her and all but she wasn't really looking for a forever type of relationship, so they broke up. and now he's in so much pain that he's traveling around trying to forget about her. he's dreaming about her and feeling like he's alone save for the heavens and his surroundings. he keeps coming back to the fact that he wanted their relationship to mean SOMETHING and he kinda worries that it meant nothing to her. so he's hoping she at least remembers him from time to time.

No Picture Matt Rhythm Player	#13 by Matt at Oct 12, 2007 at 6:09 AM EST
	To me this song is about getting out of the 'deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans.' because no one could even hear him there. yet when he's in nature, like a hummingbird, he could be heard even if it was just an echo. and things like the milky way and the mountains would never let him die alone and would always provide him company. and even if there was a girl who he left behind, he has the memory of her and she has the memory of him.

No Picture Trevor Average	#14 by Trevor fun with drugs at Oct 12, 2007 at 12:27 PM EST
	Does anyone think this song is an ode to jack kerouac? "His goal in life was to be an echo". Kerouac was the lasting voice of his generation. Also i made alot of connections with this song and Kerouac's "Big Sur", in which he escapes big city and goes out to the mountains to meditate and be at one with nature and sleeps in his sleeping bag contemplating the existence of everthing, watching. waiting watching the world "So he slept on a mountain In a sleeping bag underneath the stars He would lie awake and count them And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way Would never let him Die alone" and also the title "Hummingbird" which in the book while the main character was at his friends house /shack for a few weeks he devoloped a relationship with a hummingbird that always seemed to fly down and greet him as he awoke, either at the window, or when he slept outside right to him. i'm probably just making associations and jumping to conclusions but yeah, idk, whatever.

No Picture Turbo Grom Wanna Be	#15 by Turbo Grom at Oct 13, 2007 at 4:39 PM EST
	the chorus is beautiful. makes me think of all those people from grade school, high school, college that you know you'll never see again after graduation. theyre just frozen in your past unchanging.

No Picture Jonathan Rhythm Player	#16 by Jonathan Matuszyk at Oct 15, 2007 at 3:04 PM EST
	I agree with both ultraspamboy and Notthatpunk18. After just seeing Wilco live for the 2nd and 3rd time (1st being in 2003 at the Adelaide BDO) last week, i decided to have a bit of a re-read of some of their more powerful songs. This was absolutely breath-taking live. As i was listening to AGIB in my car this morning, i just couldn't help but think of the Hell Is Chrome reference being carried into this song through the line "Deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans" What an amazing song writer Jeff Tweedy is. Sky Blue Sky sounds fantastic too :o)

No Picture Jesse Professional	#17 by Jesse Garcia at Oct 15, 2007 at 4:55 PM EST
	for the longest time I thought he said "His goal in life was to be a lego" I was like wow, me too!

No Picture patrick Wanna Be	#18 by patrick at Oct 16, 2007 at 3:02 AM EST
	This song makes me really sad because there's this girl, who I think about a lot and care deeply for. We have an amazing friendship even though we only met this year. (long story) Anyway, for some reason my heart isn't completely content with just being friends, so I'm always thinking about how I feel about her. This is bad because she already has a boyfriend. I worry all the time that she'll get married or something before I ever tell her how I feel and that we will lose part of what we have now. I think this song expresses how I'd feel in that event. I'd just wonder if she ever remembered me...because I know I'll always remember her.

No Picture Joshua Wanna Be	#19 by Joshua Osprey at Oct 17, 2007 at 7:29 PM EST
	This song is amazing. I lvoe ti so much. I had my songs on shuffle, and this song came on, and I had never listened to it, or anything else by Wilco before; but Im really enjoying this song.

No Picture Brad Lead Player	#20 by Brad Vincent at Oct 18, 2007 at 12:51 AM EST
	this song is so beautiful and meaningful. and the tune and progression is a big departure from their earlier albums.

No Picture Troy Wanna Be	#21 by Troy Erskine at Oct 18, 2007 at 9:48 PM EST
	I get the sense that this guy is really lost, conflicted between feeling like he doesn't deserve people's company and wanting people to remember him or at least think of him fondly if they ever do think of him.

No Picture Sara Average	#22 by Sara Sunshine at Oct 19, 2007 at 3:55 AM EST
	i see it like this: at particular moments people are a part of your life, and in the present, and the future, the past exists. it's a perpetual movement. so, the past actually lasts forever, and the people that are present in those certain moments in your life hover there, even after we die, floating like a hummingbird, forever. our life is like a string of pearls. each pearl represents a certain moment in, a small part of, your life, but the string is life, earth, the stars and mountains, and we see it as lasting forever and always present. this makes me think: do the stars see each of our lives, our existences, as just one small moment? just one pearl? and if so, what do they see as the string? what is always there for them? what is their stability? is it empty darkness of the universe? it must be so beautiful to be a star. fork... im so trippin.

No Picture Sam Average	#23 by Sam Ordway at Oct 19, 2007 at 5:17 PM EST
	Some other posts have touched on what I believe to be the meaning of this song. To me this song is about a man who lived his life and did not make a lasting impression on anyone or anything, as explained by his effect (or lack thereof) on a woman and on his career. The narrative switches from third to first person throughout the song. The third person observer almost mocks the main character throughout, saying that the man's efforts and goals were foolish, thus belittling his "goal in life" by amounting its ultimate achievement to be an "echo” or “The type of sound that floats around and then back down Like a feather” With respect to the woman, it seems that he took a lot more out of a relationship than the woman did. He traveled around the world "riding alone, town after town, toll after toll" trying to escape the memory of their breakup "a fixed bayonet through the great Southwest to forget her." But alas, he could not "she appears in his dreams." His efforts to escape this girl and his attitude towards her escalated their relationship in his mind "But in his car and in his arms A dream can mean anything" but to her, the relationship meant little or nothing "A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her But he never could" The song then switches to the first person, perhaps even calling out from his grave "Remember to remember me Standing still in your past" as in, remember that their relationship was part of her life. Unfortunately, his presence did not have any effect on her, to the point she might not have even noticed him, as one might not notice a hummingbird's presence because of their silent flight "Floating fast like a hummingbird" With respect to his career, he appears to have failed to make a lasting impression there as well "But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans No one could hear him.” I take chrome canyons and Manhattan to mean work in a skyscraper in NYC. I take the lines "So he slept on a mountain In a sleeping bag underneath the stars He would lie awake and count them And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way Would never let him Die alone" to be sarcastic. This man did die alone. The company of stars in the sky is not human companionship. He is now calling out, perhaps from beyond the grave, to be remembered, even if just as a stand-still in someone's memory. A very sad and very beautiful song.

No Picture Dan Average	#24 by Dan Flores at Oct 21, 2007 at 7:14 AM EST
	His goal is to be an echo. To me this is the key. He has found his perfect love, but she isn't really, his pure idea of romance is sullied by the gritty and painful reality of failed relationships. So as he travels through the towns, and chrome canyons to finally sleep on a mountain he realizes he is forever changed. The perfect pure love he had for this woman is lost forever. That is unless she remembers. The only way that part of him will continue is in her memory. So his goal to be an echo is to have that pure and innocent person he was when he loved her live on. This may be my favorite Wilco.

No Picture Tommy Wanna Be	#25 by Tommy Tang at Oct 21, 2007 at 10:29 PM EST
	sorry, not "Big Sur" but rather "The Dharma Bums". sorry, i read them both in like a week. my bad