“Last Goodbye” is a song from Jeff Buckley’s 1994 album, Grace. It was also performed live before that, such as in
the Expanded version of Sin-é from 1993. Most of the guitars are from one guitar tuned to open G (D-G-D-G-B-D).
I’ve been a fan of Grace since about 1995 when the singer in my high school band discovered it - at that time it was
a rare jewel, not well known, but no one wanted to keep it a secret - and he kept it permanently in his CD player.
When working on performing the Sinatra tracks on a single guitar, I had created a few open tunings that are new to guitars as
far as I know which have the strings each tuned 2-3 half steps apart (as opposed to 4-5 which they are typically tuned to).
When playing with one of these tunings one day, I played the “Kiss me ...” guitar part of this song on it and just loved the
sound of it. So I asked myself: What would it sound like to play a version of this song entirely in that tuning?
This version of the song is shifted up 6 half steps (to key of C#) in general (e.g. the bass line, vocal line, and the
main guitar melodies). But the chords and harmonies played on the guitar are very different from Jeff’s because
I kept very close to his fingering but of course using a very different tuning. For example, in the main verse
riff, he plays the fingering on the left while here I’m playing the one on the right. The root and the sus4->3rd
is 6 half steps higher but the harmonies that define the chords are different: he has a root in the bass note, here the 3rd/4th is
on the low string. The open A# chord adds a 9th that his chord doesn’t have, etc.:
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Download the full mp3 on iTunes
or Amazon.
(I’d be happy to post it for free, but I
have to cover the royalties.)
Guitar, bass guitar, tabs/arrangement: Tim
Vocals: Shelby Lindley
Mixed and mastered: Ziv Music
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My point in posting this recording and these tabs is a proof point for myself that these tunings can be used
to create unique sounds on the guitar, in a way that is approachable to players familiar with other open
tunings, such as open G.
