American Child

Words & Music by John Denver
from Autograph (1980)

Unusual chords:
Esus4  :  |222||
Gmaj7  :  32|||2


D  Esus4  E  F  G  A

              G  D A            G           D        A
Goin' up to Alaska,  up to the land of the Midnight Sun
            G                               F         C   A
where the whale and polar bear run o'er the icy blue sea
              G  D A           G             D       A
Goin' up to Alaska, up to the north and the pioneer life
       G                                        F           C   D
where courage and strength still survive and a man can be free

  G
American Child does the call of the wild
      F                           C
ever sing thru the mist of your dreams?
          G                         Gmaj7   G7
Does it fly with the wind when you waken  again?
           C                           D
When it's gone do you know what it means?
         G                              
Can you picture the time when a man had to find
         F                       C
his own way through an unbroken land
   G                             Gmaj7        G7
Before the machine changed the blue and the green
    C                           D
to something you can't understand?
  G                      
American Child there's a burning inside 
          F                          C
you that calls you away through the cold
    G                 Gmaj7            G7
to come back again to all that you've been 
           C                          D
Can't you see that it's time to come home
         G  
To the flowers and the trees and the rivers and the seas
        F                         C
and the earth who's the mother of all?
    G                         Gmaj7         G7
A promise once made will it shine, will it fade
         C                       A
will we rise with the vision or fall?

              G  D A            G           D        A
Goin' up to Alaska,  up to the land of the Midnight Sun
            G                               F         C   A
where the whale and polar bear run o'er the icy blue sea
              G  D A           G             D       A
Goin' up to Alaska, up to the north and the pioneer life
       G                                        F           C 
where courage and strength still survive and a man can be free
             D
Men can be free
              G  D                G  D                G  D
Goin' up to Alaska, goin' up to Alaska, goin' up to Alaska