"Drop Dead Legs" main riff

**garbeaj** · 04.17.20, 02:05 PM

I've discussed this before going back to around 2010, but a friend asked me to write out a TAB for how to play the main riff to "Drop Dead Legs", As we should all know by now, Eddie played his vintage 1958 korina Gibson Flying V as the main guitar on the track and the overdubbed lead guitar is most likely the Frankenstein with the Kramer beak neck (though the 5150 guitar was available to him as soon as the US Festival-as we know from photographic evidence-but all the studio photos around the time of the recording of '1984' show only the Frankenstein, the Ripley and the Flying V. Also, every interview Eddie ever gave about the recording of '1984' has Ed saying he used the Frankenstein for the Floyd Rose tremolo tracks except for one relatively recent interview in February of 2014 where he said it was the 5150. I tend to believe the photos and all the interviews that were closer to the actual time of the recording of the album).

That said, given that the Flying V was used for the main guitar parts of "Drop Dead Legs", we all know that the Floyd Rose was not used for the main riff. Here is a TAB for how I believe Eddie played the main riff on the recording and how he played it live on the last reunion tours. This is a basic version of the riff that Eddie would play very slightly differently on each repeat, but this is the gist of how the riff was played:

**danielleesale** · 04.17.20, 03:44 PM

That's it. It confused people for a long time (including me) but once I saw him play it live I was like, A-ha!

**Dave not David** · 04.17.20, 10:52 PM

Is this another case of waiting for it to be embedded?
Is it a bend/release on three slid up to five?

**garbeaj** · 04.18.20, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Yaminub

Is this another case of waiting for it to be embedded?
Is it a bend/release on three slid up to five?

Can you not see the image of my handwritten TAB in the original post? As usual, I’ve got every left hand finger (I=Index, M=Middle, R=Ring, P=Pinky) notated, every slide, every bend, every right hand picking direction (Up or Down) notated. Maybe you are having a problem with your browser?