How to read tablature?
Intro:
                                                         
xA|---------------------------------------------------------|
xE|--------------3---------3---5----------------5--3--------|
xC|--5-----4--5---------5---------2--2-----------------5----|
xG|-------------------------------------5---5---------------|
 
 F        F   A7
|1-2-3-4-|1-2-3-4-|
 
Verse 1:
F                                                     Bb                       F
They could prescribe you any illness you like, if you define the terms of your ailment
                                                          Bb                           C
You could sing a pretty malady like a black canary,  but a crow don't know the smell of carbon monoxide
F                                                       Bb                           F
How many years have you been on that couch? They coulda quilt'd you in the throws by now
                                      Bb           F              Bb                    C
You draw a line in the sand, where it ends and you begin, but the tide rolls in, so who knows? Oh, well.
 
Chorus 1:
      Bb              C
And a little identity never hurt nobody,
       F                               Dm
oh but lately you've been focusing too much on yourself
   Bb                                          C
So how many milligrams of you are still left in there?
       Bb                       C                 F                 Dm
‘Cause back in my day we didn't need no feel-good pills, and no psychiatrists
           F                  Bbm    -nc-
No we just drank ourselves to death, and xxxxxxxxx we liked it
 
Instrumental -x2-: F A7 Bb Dm Gm Bb F
 
Verse 2:
F                                                                Bb
Who makes the call, what's a symptom, what’s a flaw? Could it be both?
                                   F
Well I suppose that’s some kind of answer
                                                             Bb                                 C
Would you give up your humanity for just a touch of sanity? ‘Cause god knows, it’s not like its cancer!
    F                                                       Bb                F
And good news to the purist, they discovered a cure for the symptoms of being alive
                                                          Bb                C
It’s a painless procedure with a low rate of failure, but very few patients survive!
 
Chorus 2:
       Bb               C                      F                                    Dm
And a little conformity never hurt nobody, but lately I've been worried that you're losing yourself
  Bb                                            C
So how many milligrams of you are still left in there?
       Bb                       C                 F                 Dm
‘Cause back in my day we didn't need no feel-good pills, and no psychiatrists
           F               Bbm    -nc-
No we just bled out in our baths, and xxxxxxxxx we liked it
 
Instrumental -x2-: F A7 Bb Dm Gm Bb F
 
Bridge:
Dm                                 Gm
Doctor, what's my prognosis if the studies show that
C                           F
Diease is in the eye of the beholder
        A7    Bb
Tell me so it goes
               C                   Am                       Dm
We depress to impress, I guess, in layer after layer to get off our chests
     Gm
It’s cold out now, we can take it off later
C                             F
Better safe than sorry and we both know the dangers
Dm                       F
So doctor, could you run another test?
C                                    F                    A7        Bb
Got a feeling this time I might just pass it, well if you raise the average!
Bb                   C                     Am                       Dm
We all sing when the bell curve rings, in lyrics symptomatic of the way we think
Gm                                                          C
If our harmonies don't sync, we can change our voices, our Chorus unconditional of diagnosis
 
Chorus 3:
 Bb                       C                 F                 Dm
Back in my day we didn't need no feel good pills, and no psychiatrists
Bb                           C           F              Dm
What can I say except don't heed no evil wills of moral nihilists
       Bb                    C               A              Dm
I said back in the days of lobotomies, shock therapies, and mad scientists!
                              Bbm     -nc-
Oh don't you make me waste my breath, and xxxxxxxxx—
 
Instrumental: F A7 Bb Dm Gm Bb F
 
Verse:
C                   F                                     Dm
Is your identity at stake? Does aspirin kill you with the pain?
                                          G                                        C
You're not your thoughts, you're not your brain, you're just that character you've made
                              F                                   Dm
Up in your head, down in your heart, what seem like separate body parts
                       G                                C
Just come together to believe they're you, and not just chemistry
                          F                                    Dm
It’s not the way you were raised, not what the advertisements say
                               G                                   C
Not what you pay for, what you pray for, what you want or what you say
                           F                            Dm
And I see your tendency to redefine disease by what you need,
                       G                                 C
and I'm afraid I can't prescribe the diagnosis that you seek
                                F                         Dm
But something tells me that you need, forgive me now if I misspeak,
                                G
but something tells me that you like, yeah something tells me—
-nc-
That you prefer
-nc-
To be sitting there flipping through those old issues of People
-nc-
Okay thats our time, see you same time next week