Led Zeppelin — Poor Tom Tab

Poor Tom
Led Zeppelin



Here's a bit for you about Poor Tom.  I don't have the tab
either written down or typed in, and I'm too lazy, but there's
not much to tell you.  The key is the tuning.  Low to high,
it's C—G—C—G—C—E.  So you end up tuning your fourth, fifth and
sixth strings down, and you tune your second string up.  Leave
the first and third string at concert pitch.  Once you do that,
you just strum the strings without any fingering, and you've
got an open—C chord (which is 95% of the song).  Now here's how
to play the rest:

For the parts during the verses such as "Worked for thirty
years, sharin' hopes and fears" you strum the open C—chord
while noodling that little ditty on the first and second
strings.  FYI, here are two variations of that "noodle."  I
only show the tab for the first and second strings b/c the
other four are strummed open.

1st:  2—0   0 3
2nd:      3   0

1st:  2—0   0 2
2nd:      3   0

The dash in between the 2 and the 0 on the first string
indicates a pull—off.  Does this make sense?  Last thing to
tell you about this part——you strum the third, fourth, fifth
and sixth strings open throughout this passage, but it's up to
your sense of which ones to strum and when (use your own
judgment).

Next figure:  this figure is played during the lines "People
think that you can hide from Tom," etc.  Basically, this figure
has two variations from my "open—string" rule on this song.
First, you have a periodic pull—off from the G to the E (from
the third fret to open) on the first string.  Second, you have
a descending "bass" type line from A to Ab to G.  Now here's
the deal.  Technically on record, I think the A—Ab—G descending
part is only played on the third string, _BUT_ I find you get a
much beefier sound (particularly if you're playing by yourself
(i.e. no drums, etc)) if you double that A—Ab—G "bass" figure
on the fifth string as well.  So you use your index and middle
fingers to fret the fifth and third strings, respectively, and
you move down from the 2nd fret to the 1st fret to open, all
the while doing periodic pull—offs (with your pinky) on the
first string.  Here's my best attempt to describe it on paper.

1st 0 0 0 3—0 0 0 0|0 0 0 3—0 0 0 0|0 0 0 3—0 0 0 0|
2nd 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|