Belle and Sebastian - A Century of Elvis: Guitar Chords

Learn to play "A Century of Elvis" on your guitar with our chord guide. This page provides everything you need to perform this song on the guitar, including lyrics integrated with chords, chord diagrams, and a key transposer to match your vocal range.

For easier playing, use our Simplify Chords feature to remove difficult chords like barre.

D                                 A/C#
We were sitting in the living room on the sofa
                             Bm
The wrong way round, looking out the window
         A                         G
It was quiet, and then in the car park across
the road
          D/F#                A
We saw Elvis - look, there beside the postman's van
And he was walking round the postman's van

Looking in the open door
He looked as if he was thinking about getting in
But then the postman came back
And he swaggered off
Walked past the window and down the stairs
And then at the bottom of the stairs right
By the caretaker's office
He started licking the pavement

Every night now since we moved in that new house
There's this noise outside the door at just
about half seven
Or eight o' clock every night
And if we go and look outside the door
Elvis'll be standing there waiting to be let in
And then he wanders into the living room
Maybe sits down on one of the chairs
Or even lies down on the floor
He doesn't say much
He just stays there for an hour or two,
watching the TV

Bm
We talk to him a bit
            G
And then around ten o' clock, he'll go away again
                     D                A
And not come back until the next night

Bm
There's a lot of lanes and stuff around here
            G
Around the house - although it's right in the middle
                                     D
Of the city it seems quite like the country
It's dead hidden - safe I suppose, made for
 A
night living
There's a lot of squirrels and birds
And Stuart says he's seen about nine foxes
                                 G
There when he's jumped over the fence on
His way to Byres Road

D
Sometimes you can go out walking
                                         A
And when you've been out for a wee while even
you don't know
Where you are anymore
So it would be pretty hard for anyone else
to find you
            G
I suppose that's why he spends so much time there
                                   D
That's why he's come to live there, or maybe it's
Just the squirrels
I read about somewhere that he likes squirrels
quite a lot

There's these two videos that we got for
wedding presents -
Called the e-files, e-files one and e-files
two about how Elvis is
Supposed to be still alive
And one time when he came round we were watching
one of Those

but he didn't say anything he just sat on
the armchair
He was playing with his collar a bit, and we
watched
It right through and then when it finished he just
Got up and walked off into the mist and didn't
say anything

The first few times he came round
I didn't speak to him at all
I wasn't really sure what to say
And Karen spoke to him quite a lot -
She seemed to know what to do more than I do
He had quite a strange manner though
He'd go into your stuff and look through it,
then he'd maybe
Pick something up and play with it for a wee while
But he'd never make any comment about any of it
Seemed pretty rude to me. I just watched
whatever Karen did
And listened to how she talked to him and then
After a while I started to copy that, and
tell him a few things
Not really bothered about whether he
Responded or said anything back or not.
I think the first time
I spoke to him we were sitting up on the
mezzanine and
I said that I would tell him about me and wee Karen
And how it was that we'd come to be living there
I thought he probably liked the fact that we were
Living there because he came round so much, so
I thought he might want to know how it was
that it came about
We did it all over backwards, I told him
First of all we got to know each other
And then a while after that we met
And when we'd known each other for
About seven years we decided to have an anniversary
And that went quite well
So after the anniversary we had a honeymoon
And that went well too
So after that we decided that we would get married
That's why we're living there now
I used to think my dad was
Elvis, but I haven't told him that yet.
I haven't told my dad either...


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Guitar Chord Diagrams

A

Guitar chord A

Bm

Guitar chord Bm

C#

Guitar chord C#

D

Guitar chord D

F#

Guitar chord F#

G

Guitar chord G

Here you can see detailed diagrams for each guitar chord used in the song. Utilize our key transposer to adjust the chords to a key that better fits your singing range. Simply select the desired key, and the chords throughout this page will update automatically, ensuring you can play and sing comfortably.

If you are also interested in learning how to play "A Century of Elvis" on the ukulele, check out the chords on our sister site: Ukulele Chords for "A Century of Elvis" by Belle and Sebastian.

Belle and Sebastian Song List