[Intro]
   C                         G
E|-------------------------|-------------------------|
B|---8-8-8-8--10-8--8---8--|---3--3--3---------------|
G|---9-9-9-9--9--9--11--9--|---4--4--4---------------| x2
D|-------------------------|---5--5--5---------------|
A|-------------------------|-------------------------|
E|-------------------------|-------------------------|

[Verse 1]
    C                          G
My father is a doctor, he's a family man
    C                           G
My mother works for charity whenever she can
         C                              G
They're both good clean Americans who abide by the law
      C                                  G
They both stick up for liberty and they both support the war.
    C            F                  G                C
My happiness was paid for when they laid their money down
     C           F              G              C
For summers in a summercamp and winters in the town
    G             F          C                 G
My future in the system was talked about and planned
       C              F              G            C
But I gave it up for music and the Free Electric Band.

[Verse 2]
   C                                         G
I went to school in handwashed shirts with neatly oiled hair
           C                                 G
And the school was big and newly built and filled with light and air
           C                              G
And the teacher taught us values that we had to learn to keep
           C                           G
And they clipped the ear of many idle kid who went to sleep.
          C          F              G             C
Till my father organised for me a college in the east
       C            F              G               C
But I went to California for the sunshine and the beach
     C                 F           G           C
My parents and my lecturers could never understand
N.C.                                               C      G
Why I gave it up for music and the Free electric band.

[Bridge]
          F                  C       G                C
Well they used to sit and speculate upon their son's career
    F            C          G        C
A lawyer or a docter or a civil engineer
                        F            C           G
Just give me bread and water, put a guitar in my hand
      C            F             G             C
'Cos all I need is music and the Free Electric Band.

[Verse 3]
     C                          G
My father sent me money and I spent it very fast
      C                           G
On a girl I met in Berkley in a social science class
             C                             G
Yes and we learned about her body but her mind we did not know
  C                              G
Until deep routed attitudes and morals began to show
      C              F           G              C
She wanted to get married even though she never said
       C               F             G              C
And I knew her well enough by now to see inside her head
         C          F            G               C
She'd settle for suburbia and a little patch of land
N.C                                                C      G
So I gave her up for music and the Free Electric Band.

[Outro]
C          G
Oooh the Free Electric Band.
     C                              G
shaladah badup dup dee dee dee with Free Electric Band.
     C                              G
shaladah badup dup dee dee dee with Free Electric Band.