The Way I Should
Iris DeMent, 1996
Capo 4, Key of B (Iris Dement arrangement)
intro/bridge
C
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5
1
1
C
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verse
G
D
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5
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Em
Em
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C
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C
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4
D
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5
5
1
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chorus
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C
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4
C
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1
A cold wind against my shoulder, it woke me up in the middle of the night.
An autumn leaf was scrapin' against my window like it was tryin' hard to get inside.
Then a ghost that I had met before he kept me up til' dawn, and everything I thought was right, was suddenly all wrong.
He said your score is lookin' pretty bad," and then he asked me what it was that I had to show.
So, I went running down a list of things, some were real and on some of them I lied.
Cuz I felt I had to justify each breath that I'd been breathin' in this life.
Then I realized I was playing into someone else's rules, tryin' to keep my score up in a game I did not choose.
Then I looked that ghost straight in the eye and said, "You'd better not be comin' back by again."
chorus
And it's true that I don't work near as hard as you tell me that I'm supposed to. I don't run as fast as I could.
But I live just the way I want to, and that's the way I should.
October's leaves were dancin' around like angels dressed in robes of red and gold.
But November's come and gone now and they're lying in a gutter out along the road.
They're gonna make their way out to the ditch or someday to the sea, they'll get to where they're goin' without the help of you or me,
And if each life is just a grain of sand, I'm tellin' you man, this grain of sand is mine.