Mr. Bad Example ukulele

Mr. Bad Example

• E

Mr. Bad Example  
by Warren Zevon  
as it appears on the album "Learning to Flinch"  
Faithfully transcribed by Jeremy Sarna  

{Capo on 2nd fret} 


E                                        B7  
I started as an altar boy working in the church  
B7                                        E  
Learning all my holy moves and doing some research  
E                                              A7  
Which led me to a cash box labelled "Children's Fund"  
A7                   E                B7              E  
I left the coins and tucked the bills inside my cummerbund  

I got a part time job at my father's carpet store  
Laying tackless stripping and housewives by the score  
I loaded up their furniture and took it to Spokane  
and auctioned off every last Naugahyde divan  

I'm very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins  
I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in  
I'm proud to be a glutton and I don't have time for sloth  
I'm greedy and I'm angry and I don't care who I cross  

Chorus:  

    A7        E         B7           E  
I'm Mr. Bad Example, intruder in the dirt  
   A7            E                B7                 E  
I like to have a good time and I don't care who gets hurt  
    A7        E      B7             E  
I'm Mr. Bad Example, take a look at me  
     A7           E              B7         E  
I'll live to be a hundred and go down in infamy  

Of course I went to law school, took a law degree  
Counselled all my clients to plead insanity  
Then worked in hair replacement swindling the bald  
Where very few are chosen and fewer still are called  

Then on to Monte Carlo to play chemin de faire  
I threw away the fortune I made transplanting hair  
I put my last few francs down on a prostitute  
Who took me up to her room to perform the flag salute  

Whereupon I stole her passport and her wig  
Headed for the airport and the midnight flight, you dig?  
Fourteen hours later I was down in Adelaide  
Flipping through the want ads sipping Fosters in the shade  

I opened up an agency somewhere down the line  
To hire aboriginals to work the opal mines  
But I attached their wages and took a whopping cut  
Whisked away their workman's comp and pauperized the lot  

Chorus  

I bought a first class ticket on Malaysian Air  
Landed in Sri Lanka none the worse for wear  
I'm thinking of retiring from all my dirty deals  
And I'll see you in the next life, wake me up for meals!  
 

x

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