Born for Love – David Baerwald (chords)

I’ve been looking for chords or tab to David Baerwald‘s beautiful song “Born for Love” for a year or more. I fooled around with it on the guitar, and found a few of the chords used, but couldn’t make a good arrangement to play it.

Yesterday I found a video of David Baerwald playing Born for Love live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in LA on March 31, 2017. I was looking for any evidence of how to play the song. Baerwald’s music stand obscures his fret hand, but that probably doesn’t matter, as he far outclasses me as a player. On the other hand (literally), I could see his sideman Brady Cohan (who also far outclasses me) playing, and David helpfully asks in the video “are we all capoed up?”, which helped me out a lot.

By the way, this show, and this band look stellar – I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing, but the entire Baerwald Live at McCabe’s video is on Vimeo for your entertainment!

I didn’t particularly want to enrich any of the commercial tab sites, though I figure they’ll find and screen-scrape this anyway, but here goes: my imperfect chord-out for Born for Love, along with some playing instructions.

Copyright to the lyrics rests entirely with the copyright-holder(s). They’re reproduced here to help you learn to play this beautiful song. Enjoy.

Born for Love - David Baerwald
Live at McCabes, March 31, 2017 - Sideman's Guitar chords.

Standard Tuning: EADGBE
Capo 2
Open strings with capo: F# B E A C# f#

Arpeggiate these chords. Read: Chord shape (Actual chord)

Strings          654321
---------------  ------
G      (A)       320003 Arp  6432
D      (E)       xx0232 Arp  4321  Hammer string 1
Eb     (F)       xx103x Play 432   1x before Em (F)
Em     (F#m)     022000 Arp  6432
Em7    (F#m7)    020000 Play 6432  1x before C (D)
C      (D)       x32010 Arp  5432  Hammer string 4
Dadd11 (Eadd11)  x54030 Arp  5432  Slide up from C (D)

Chords - by shape:

Verse 1:
G
Every morning, when I rise
D                                Eb
I wipe the sleep out from my eyes
Em                         Em7
Ask myself the question why 
C                ->Dadd11
Oh why was I born

Verse 2:
G
I go out wandering the ripped up streets
D                                   Eb 
Bodies on the sidewalk huddling for heat
Em                                       Em7
The whole world looking like some losing streak
C              ->Dadd11
Why was I born?

Verse 3:
G
I get home and you're not there
D                                                    Eb
But your clothes are hanging and your scent's in the air
Em                               Em7
If it aint an answer I don't care
C             
Why I was born

Chorus:
              Em
I was born to love you.
              C         ->Dadd11
I was born to love you, Oh...
              G     C    G
I was born for love


Verse 4:
Last year I saw those pearly gates
Tried to shove my way through; they said you gotta wait
You've got to get some questions straight
Like why you were born

Verse 5:
They said what do you think, that it was made for you
Why should anyone care what it is you do?
The course gets set you got to see it through
That's why you were born

Verse 6:
I got up; I saw them all
All God's creatures great and small
It came in clear as a local call
Why I was born

Chorus:
I was born to love you
I was born to love you
I was born for love…

Outro: cycle Em, G