Question about tabs:

I've been playing for about 2.5 months now and I'm starting to get to the point where I can take on a bit more complex tabs (at least complex to me) but I'm having a problem understanding one thing about tabs.

Taken from the Kink's Lola, there's a picking portion of the tab that looks like

    E                            A             D
E|-----0----0----0----0------------0----0--------2----2------
B|-------0----0----0-------0---------2----2--------3----3----
G|---------1----1----1---1---1---------2----2--------2----2--
D|---------------------------------------------0-------------
A|-------------------------------0---------------------------
E|--0--------------------------------------------------------
     I met her...            ...you drink...   ...tastes just like...

What exactly do the E, A, and D mean above the E string?

I've read that this had to do with quarter notes, etc (as seen from Call of Ktulu below) but to me it looks like something pertaining to chords in the Kink's tabs.

 E E E E E E E E   H..       +E      E E E E E E E E   E E E E E E E E  4x
|---5---------5---|-5---------(5)-||----------0-------|---------0--------||
|-------6-------6-|-6---------(6)-||o-------0---0-----|-------0---0-----o||
|-----7-----7-----|-7---------(7)-||------5-------5---|-----5-------5----||
|-0-------7-------|---------------||----7-------------|---7-----------7--||
|-----------------|---------------||o-0-------------7-|-6---------------o||
|-----------------|---------------||------------------|------------------||

Thanks for any help/advice!