********I fear I just wasted an hour typing this up because again, Boardhost will not let me place the chord symbols over the exact words. So I'm going to take the site at its word and try to upload a picture - a .jpg screen shot of what I typed here in the message box.******

OK - so that works. Now the image makes the writing tiny, but if you click on the image itself, it will enlarge each time you click. And the image has the chord symbols in the right place.







So let's start with a point in response to Paul and Rick - the chords from that site (not Pete Curry's) are partially but not completely correct. The primary thing that is missing is the C# - C that opens the song and appears between the end of the chorus before each verse - and within each verse as well.

This is the flamenco sound that you get when you form an E major chord and then slide your three fingers that are fretting the 3rd, fourth, and fifth strings up to the second fret and then down to the original E position. The dissonance in what is an F chord that is not fully fretted is a key element in flamenco music.

If we want to play "Alamo" and have it sound like the Trio's instrumentation, we absolutely need that dissonant sound (which would be a C# in the "Ultimate Guitar Tabs" link that Rick provided).

Pete Curry's Trio Database arrangement provides the answer perfectly, but to play along with the record, as he notes, would involve re-tuning the guitar down half a step and employ the dreaded ( ) F#m chord that requires a full barre at the 2nd fret.

So - that sharped flamenco chord (you can also hear it in the instrumental break in "El Matador") is necessary for an accurate rendering of the guitars in the song.

You can get a decent but not perfect rendering of the sound if you make a C# chord in the way I describe above for E/F and that Pete does for D/D#. Fret a C chord then slide your fingers up to the second fret - you get a dissonant sounding "almost" C#, but that dissonance is part of the flamenco sound of the song.

Let me try to tab a verse out including this C#.

Intro:

C# C# C# C (2 times)

C G C F
A hundred and eighty were challenged by Travis to

C C# C# C# C
die.

C G C F
A line that he drew with his sword when the battle

C C# C# C# C
was nigh.

F Em
"The man who would fight to the death cross over

Dm7 C
but he who that would live better fly,"

C G C F
And over the line stepped a hundred and seventy

C C# C# C# C
nine

The chorus would be the same as Ultimate Guitar Tabs, but at the end you would repeat that dissonant C#/C progression, as here:

G C C# C# C# C
And Remember the Alamo!

C C# C# C# C