Skip to content

HARMONICA SONG Submit a tab

Telegraph Road

by Dire Straits · harmonica tab for C diatonic harmonica

39 bent notes327 notesHoles 4–6Diatonic

My harp is in

Next note

Speed 100 notes/min

This plays the notes in order so you can hear how the tune goes. Tabs don’t record rhythm, so for the timing, listen to the original on YouTube. Tap any note in the tab to start from there.

The tab

4 = blow hole 4-4 = draw hole 4’ = bend

A long time a-go came a man on a track

Walk-ing thir-ty miles with a sack on his back

And he put down his load where

he thought it was best

And he made a home in the wil-der-ness

He built a ca-bin and a win-ter store

And he ploughed up the ground by

the cold lake shore

And the oth-er tra-vel-lers

came rid-ing down the track

And they nev-er went fur-ther,

and they nev-er went back

Then came the church-es then came the schools

Then came the law-yers then came the rules

Then came the trains & the trucks with their load

And the dir-ty old track was the te-le-graph road

VERSE 3

And my ra-di-o says to-night it's gon-na freeze

Peo-ple driv-ing home from the fac-tor-ies

There's six lanes of traf-fic

Three lanes mov-ing slow. . .

but they shut it down

I've got a right to go to work

But there's no work here to be found

Yes and they say we're gon-na

have to pay what's owed

We're gon-na have to reap from some

seed that's been sowed

And the birds up on the wires

and the tel-e-graph poles

They can al-ways fly a-way from this

rain and this cold

You can hear them sing-ing out

their tel-e-graph code

All the way down the tel-e-graph road

VERSE 5

From these riv-ers of head-lights

these riv-ers of rain

From the an-ger that lives on the

streets with these names

'cos I've run ev-ry red light on mem-o-ry lane

I've seen des-pe-ra-tion ex-plode in-to flames

And I don't want to see it a-gain

From all of these signs say-ing sor-ry

but we're closed

All the way down the tel-e-graph road