Rings by Toad the Wet Sprocket (chords & tabs)

Toad the Wet Sprocket is one of my favorite bands of all time, and this is one of their best songs. It's about a unique topic that you don't often see in pop songs--trees. It also is brief at less than 3 minutes, and doesn't waste any time in repetitive themes. It gets right to business, walking through a long, novel chord progression before ending back up on the minor root. Subsequent phrases have slight variations to make things more interesting. There's also nice use of harmonic background vocals. And the vocal line is very nicely dissonant with the chords, adding more sonic complexity you rarely find outside of classical or jazz. This is pretty damn close to rock song perfection, IMHO.

Update (5/7/08): here is the chord progression which I figured over the last weekend. Enjoy.

F#m              D      /E
     Are you the plane?

F#m       E          D      /E  
     that shapes the board?

F#m       E/G#  A  D        /E
     part of    a  history,

F#m       E            D
          smoothed and worn. And

Bm   C    C#m      D              F#m/D#   D 
ohhh...        the windy weather,

F#m/D#       D      F#m/D#     E5
         dry spell,         brush fire.