Learn to Play Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Powerful New Folk Rocker “Empty Trainload of Sky”

“Empty Trainload of Sky,” which kicks off Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ latest album, Woodland, feels like an instant classic, with a sturdy melody over a loping folk-rock groove reminiscent of Neil Young—a connection the songwriters perhaps acknowledge by dropping the line “Hey hey my my” at the end of the bridge. As described in the interview here, Welch actually did experience a surreal vision of boxcars filled with sky, and built the song from that image. 

As with all of the duo’s songs, the basic ingredients of “Empty Trainload of Sky” are dead simple, with just two sections (verse and bridge) and four chords (Em, A, G, and B7). On top of Welch’s rhythm, Rawlings adds his signature fills and lead work with his tiny Epiphone archtop. The transcription here (by Adam Perlmutter) includes Rawlings’ intro and a solo over the bridge form.

Both Welch and Rawlings capo at the third fret, using E minor shapes that sound in the key of G minor. Welch plays the open shapes in the chord grids; note that for the A and B7 she often plays the fifth below the root, for an A/E or an B7/F#, as shown. She strums lightly and leaves plenty of space by using reduced chords and skipping over beats. As a basic pattern, try playing just low strings on beat 1 and upper strings on 2 and 4, and filling in sparingly with eighth note strums. Focus on creating a drum-like groove—kick/bass on the downbeat, snare/strum on the backbeat—rather than strumming continuously.

 The guitar solos include a number of classic Rawlings moves. He often emphasizes non-chord tones like the second. Throughout these solos, he lands on an F# note (fourth string, fourth fret), which is the second in the key of E minor. He plays a recurring guitar hook by pulling off the third string from fret 6 to the open string, as in measures 7 and 48. Harmonically speaking, he’s going between the sixth and the minor third—an unexpected and haunting interval.

Also characteristic of Rawlings’ style are close intervals on adjacent strings, like the F# and G notes he plays successively in measures 3 and 4, or at the same time in measure 37. Throughout the solos, he uses lots of hammer-ons and pull-offs for fluid phrasing, often in quick triplets.

Notice how, in measures 41–43, Rawlings repeats an ascending line (from the open fifth string to the open third string) three times, but shifts it each time to a different place in the measure—a cool displacement effect. And in measure 45, he drops a couple of quick harmonics into the middle of a phrase.

Finally, singers should note that the transcription includes the duet parts, so you can take a good look and listen at how Welch and Rawlings arrange their voices. Rawlings comes in and out with his harmony and does not always move in parallel with Welch—the intervals change continually. As with their guitars, the duo creates a remarkable, subtle blend with their vocals.

Due to copyright restrictions, we are unable to post notation or tablature for this musical work. If you have a digital or physical copy of the January/February 2025 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine, you will find the music on page 56.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.