Return To Dismal Swamp – 5-String Banjo TAB

The photo above is just a sample of the two page tab.

(The button to DOWNLOAD the .pdf file for this tab is at the bottom of the article.)

THE HISTORY OF RETURN TO DISMAL SWAMP

3/31/2025 By Russ J. Alan

“Dismal Swamp” is a banjo instrumental that is anything but “dismal.”  The song is fast-paced and fun and shows off the banjo skills of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band co-founder, multi-instrumentalist, John McEuen.

John said this song was instrumental to the formation of The Dirt Band. He and his brother, William who managed the band, wrote the song. John told friend Les Thompson that he would join his budding band if they agreed to learn and play Dismal Swamp with him at Topanga Canyon banjo contest. They agreed, and The Dirt Band included the song on their debut album, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1967).

“DISMAL SWAMP” GOES TO RUSSIA – BECOMES “WHITE RUSSIA“

In May 1977 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (NGDB) was selected by the Russian Soviet government to tour the USSR, marking them the first American group to do so. In May 1977, the band spent a month touring Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Latvia, playing 28 sold-out concerts and also performed a one-hour performance on Moscow television that was watched by an estimated 145 million people. For those shows, Dismal Swamp was re-named “White Russia”.

When the band returned to America, they put together their tenth album, The Dirt Band (1978). One of its featured tracks was White Russia.

“WHITE RUSSIAN” GETS RENAMED TO “RETURN TO DISMAL SWAMP“

In 1986, after twenty years with the NGDB, John McEuen departed to pursue a solo career. On his second solo album, String Wizards (1991), he recorded Dismal Swamp as one of the tracks, this time re-naming it “Return to Dismal Swamp”. John returned to NGDB in 2001 and their 29th album, Will The Circle Be Unbroken 3 (2002), included Return to Dismal Swamp.

BANJOISTS WANTED A TAB – BUT NO GOOD ONES TO BE FOUND

What a great song. Everybody wanted to learn it. Nobody could learn it from listening to John McEuen play it, John was the “Eddie Van Halen” of the banjo – and just like Eddie Van Halen, he never played any of his songs the same way. Eddie Van Halen never showed up for practice. He didn’t need to – his guitar playing had absolutely nothing to do with what the other three band members were doing. “VAN HALEN: Three Musicians and a MAGICIAN.”

Reminds me of when I delivered a roller bed to Eddie Van Halen and his wife Valerie Bertanelli at their condo at Sun Valley Ski Resort in winter 1993.  I think they were contemplating splitting up around that time. I figured he was drunk and Valerie didn’t want to sleep with him – but that’s a different story for another time.

Nick Danger, aka Stu D. Baker-Hawk, posted what he called a tab of Return to Dismal Swamp on BanjoHangout.org on Oct 7, 2012. He said “This song has morphed into many different versions throughout the years. I’ve incorporated all the known versions of this song into one arrangement. It’s a great banjo tune from the mind of John McEuen and it’s worthy of your interest.” Nick’s tab was a good banjo song and a pretty tab, beautifully done on apparently a really good computer program. I even downloaded the song and I worked it out and practiced it and practiced it, and I love that song, and one of these days, I’m going to figure out a name for it, but other than having the correct chord progression – I take that back – Nick DID include John’s “walk-down” on the first string, 7th-3rd-5th-1st-3rd frets – other than those two things it has nothing else remotely in common with Dismal Swamp or White Russia or Return to Dismal Swamp either. Sorry Nick – or “Stu” – but thanks for participating.

John McEuen and Steve Martin (magician, comedian, actor, banjoist) were good friends since high school. John taught Steve some banjo back then. They both were magicians too. One of their first jobs was when they landed jobs at the magic shop at Disneyland. They both learned how to do the magic tricks to sell the pre-packaged tricks sold in the shop.

I found John’s thirty-five minute Youtube video teaching how he plays Return to Dismal Swamp (R2DS) which begins with 25 minutes of talking about how he got interested in playing banjo, and IMHO, he’s teaching how to play R2DS just like a magician might teach how to do a trick after he does the trick. It’s just another magic trick, because you see, the magician doesn’t REALLY want to teach you how to do the trick, the trick is, he shows you how to do the trick knowing he’s just confused you even more. You could watch him show you how to do that trick fifty times, and you still won’t know how he did it. So instead of watching a magic trick and learning how to do the magic trick, you just saw two magic tricks. John’s not going to teach you his tricks – if he did, you won’t need to pay John McEuen to do the tricks.

John gave me his email address a few years ago so I emailed him and (like he didn’t know) I explained how everybody is dying to get a tab from him on how he plays the song. He never mentioned he had “a tab” at the end of his Youtube video. I am sure he probably didn’t even know. Born in 1945, he’s 80 at the time of this writing, I’m sure he thinks computers, the internet, Youtube – “its all a passing fad.” Somebody else I imagine put it together for him. John said “I’ll get around to it”. I asked him “How did you come up with that lick up on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th frets??” “OH yeah – that’s my TURKISH LICK.” I did that on for White Russia when we were in The Soviet Union cause it sounded Russian!” John and I were going back and forth on email like it was a messenger chat. I told him “Many of the great banjo players have put together a book of how to play their songs – even Earl Scruggs.” He said “I realize, and I’ll get around to it – someday.” He at the time was heavily involved in a campaign to sell more 50th Anniversary Will the Circle Be Unbroken number 8 albums or whatever number it is now.

So I go back to his video and I found just by accident at the very end of his video – the last 20 seconds – he shows what he calls “the tab”, which is nothing remotely close to R2DS except for the correct chord progression, the “walk-down” and something else – his “Turkish lick”.

I was beating my head against the wall. I had tabs laying all over my kitchen table and all over the floor with scissors and scotch tape dispensers and bottles of whiteout trying to piece together how to play Return To Dismal Swamp.

So I get back on BanjoHangout.org this time I found a guy talking about this “guy named Bill Breen who played the song on a Youtube video” and “John McEuen had commented on Bill’s video “getting close!” So I went to Youtube, searched Bill Breen and I found a white haired senior citizen with a banjo, playing R2DS, and it was the closest thing I had ever found to John’s, even though the chord progression wasn’t quite right and there was no “walk-down” nor any “Turkish lick”, but I liked it! So I got on Facebook and search for Bill Breen, and you know – finding a bunch of Bill Breens and having to try to find one who looks like him with white hair, and I found him, and messaged him on Facebook. Late that night I got a ping on my Facebook messenger. It was Bill and I told him everything I’ve typed above basically, and what I’ve been going through, and asked him if he has a tab for that song and of course he did no. I got the impression he wasn’t a big fan of tabs – probably one of those “play by EAR” guys and “tabs are just a passing fad – and so’s the internet!” We chatted for a couple of hours and several more times over the next few months.

So despite the incorrect chord progression and the lack of a “walk-down” or a “Turkish lick”, I spent the next several days watching Bill’s performance, slowed down to 5%, zooming in as close to his fretting hand as I could get, banjo in my lap trying to play back what I thought I saw and heard, tabbing with a pencil.

Long story short, after a few months of taking pieces of all the tabs I had gathered including Nick’s and John’s and Bill Breen’s arrangement, I have a tab from even more versions than Nick Danger said he had used on HIS. I put Bill Breen’s name on it as co-arranger along with mine and sent him a video of Musescore v4 playing it back. He told me to take his name off of it. He insisted. He said he couldn’t hear anything on the video I sent him. A few months later I saw one of his facebook posts talking about his new hearing aids.

I told you all this because I want you to know I’ve done all your work for you. I have made it available for you, complete with the correct chord progression, a “walk-down” and John McEuen’s “Turkish Lick”. You can download the tab from this page.

To download the 5-string banjo tab for Return to Dismal Swamp,

Click button below:

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