Mr Bad Example Cifras

Mr. Bad Example
by Warren Zevon
as it appears on the album "Learning to Flinch"
Faithfully transcribed by Jeremy Sarna
 
NOTE: Capo 2 for recorded key. Warren used no capo for live performances (see Youtube).
 
 
[Intro]
E
 
[Verse]
   E                                     B7
I started as an altar boy working at the church
B7                                          E
Learning all my holy moves and doing some research.
E                                                A
Which led me to a cash box, labelled "Children's Fund"
A                         E                 B7            E
I'd leave the change and tucked the bills inside my cummerbund.
 
  E                                         B7
I got a part time job at my father's carpet store
B7                                              E
Laying tackless stripping and housewives by the score.
  E                                           A
I loaded up their furniture and took it to Spokane
    A             E          B7          E
and auctioned off every last Naugahyde divan.
 
    E                                          B7
I'm very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins
  B7                                       E
I keep a busy schedule, trying to fit them in.
    E                                               A
I'm proud to be a glutton and I don't have time for sloth
    A               E          B7               E
I'm greedy and I'm angry and I don't care who I cross.
 
[Chorus]
    A         E        B7            E
I'm Mr. Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
   A             E                B7                  E
I like to have a good time, and I don't care who gets hurt.
    A         E      B7             E
I'm Mr. Bad Example, take a look at me
     A            E              B7          E   B7
I'll live to be a hundred and go down in infamy.
 
[Verse]
   E                                           B7
Of course I went to law school, and took a law degree
    B7                                        E
And counselled all my clients, to plead insanity.
     E                                         A
Then worked in hair replacement, swindling the bald
      A            E           B7              E
Where very few are chosen, and fewer still are called.
 
     E                                   B7
Then on to Monte Carlo to play chemin de faire
  B7                                           E
I threw away the fortune, I made transplanting hair.
  E                                      A
I put my last few francs down on a prostitute
    A             E           B7                 E
Who took me up to her room to perform the flag salute.
 
E                                      B7
Whereupon I stole her passport and her wig
    B7                                                  E
And headed for the airport and the midnight flight, you dig?
    E                                     A
And fourteen hours later I was down in Adelaide
A                   E                B7             E
Looking through the want ads sipping Fosters in the shade.
 
  E                                      B7
I opened up an agency somewhere down the line
   B7                                E
To hire aboriginals to work the opal mines.
    E                                          A
But I attached their wages and took a whopping cut
    A                  E                  B7             E
And whisked away their workman's comp and pauperized the lot.
 
[Chorus]
    A         E        B7            E
I'm Mr. Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
   A             E                B7                  E
I like to have a good time, and I don't care who gets hurt.
    A         E      B7             E
I'm Mr. Bad Example, take a look at me
     A            E              B7          E   B7
I'll live to be a hundred and go down in infamy
 
[Verse]
  E                                        B7
I bought a first class ticket on Malaysian Air
    B7                                      E
And landed in Sri Lanka, none the worse for wear.
    E                                      A
I'm thinking of retiring from all my dirty deals
     A              E          B7             E      E
I'll see you in the next life, wake me up for meals!
X