• Song:

    Mistaken For Strangers

  • Artist:

    The National

ubi_rex@hotmail.com

At times you can hear the three notes of the intro chords plucked in
the pattern of low-middle-high-middle.  On live versions, someone in the
band plucks that pattern for the first four lines, then plucks it an octave
higher for the two lines that go "showered and blue-blazered..."
(Note: I recommend finding a good live version.  I think the live is better
than the album version, which obscures the guitar.)

I've written two ways to play the chords.  The first is the easiest,
but I saw them live and it looked they played it the second way.
They sound the same.  I suppose the second is nice if you want 
to give your guitar a hard strum without worrying about muting 
the low string.
       easy      live
F/A:   X032XX    587XXX
F/Bb:  X132XX    687XXX     
F:   X332XX    887XXX     
Csus4: X330XX    885XXX     

Intro: F/A  F/Bb  F  Csus4

            F/A                   F/Bb
You have to do it running but you do everything that they
F                  Csus4
ask you to cause you don’t mind seeing
    F/A                  F/Bb
yourself in a picture as long as you look
    F                 Csus4
faraway, as long as you look removed
F/A               F/Bb      F                Csus4
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters
F/A               F/Bb      F                Csus4
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters

        Dm                             F
You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
         Bb                           F
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery
  Bb                    F              Am                    Am7
citibank lights, arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under

       Dm                     F
Oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over.
   Bb                    F
Surprise, surprise, they wouldn’t wannna watch
 Bb                 F                     Am            Am7
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

        F/A                          F/Bb
Make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
            F                       Csus4
so you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves
       F/A                  F/Bb
so you swear you just saw a feathery
      F                 Csus4
woman carry a blindfolded man through the trees
F/A               F/Bb      F                Csus4
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters
F/A               F/Bb      F                Csus4
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters

(repeat chorus)
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