I’ve blogged this song here and here but I was never happy that I got the gist of how I play the song into the BIAB backings. They do however accurately reflect the proper melody.
I think Angrisano plays it capo 5, but the chords on capo 3 fit better for me and make the song more playable. It is still starting to hurt my old hands playing it on a 12 string electric but is very comfortable on my little travel guitar.
I’ve made a webcam video, not as a performance piece, but really to show a song surviving my poor singing voice and average guitar playing. Please ignore my dodgy pitch and tendency to make up the melody as I go, the point is whether an assembly could be led to sing this song by very basic solo guitarist and voice if that was all that was available. Personally I would not let me sing anywhere near a microphone and hope for someone with a half decent voice to lead the singing while I play.
It would be an interesting exercise to apply the basic singer/average guitarist test to commonly used songs – would the tempo and key need adjustment? Would the chords need simplification? Without making a song unrecognisable can a functional result be achieved? If so, a lot more parishes without expert musicians could have live music for mass. (Please feel free to ignore this if you have paid musicians in your parish. Out in suburban and country Australia I’ve never heard of such a thing.)
I apologise for adding to the number of YouTube videos of guitarists playing songs to their computer.