A few beers and a few songs to mark the end of the semester. First up, after some beer, was “Redemption Song”. The features an introductory riff over a G chord. Surprisingly, that riff is not heard after the intro. The chords for the verse are G, Em, C, G/B (a G chord with a B bass), and Am. Just before the chorus, the C chord moves to a D7. The chorus consists G, C, and D (repeated) Em (the relative minor of G), C, and D, and then a return to G, C, and D. The little instrumental section after the second verse is just Em, C, and D repeated 4 times. The song ends with the chorus, and we finish on the tonic G, which surprisingly the original recording doesn’t. Bob must have been on something when he made that choice:
That was followed, after some more beer, by “With or Without You”. While I’ve been playing off and on for most of my life, I mostly played pieces for solo guitar and only on the odd occasion did I learn a rock/pop song from start to finish from a backing/rhythm perspective. It was a nice surprise to discover that this song, and a few others in our set list, consists of the one chord progression that is used for the verse, chorus, and outro. That made learning the song unbelievably easy. The chords are D, A, Bm, and G or in terms of Roman Numerals with “I” being the tonic: I, V, iii, and IV:
“Brown Eyed Girl” was next, and it sounded pretty good considering we didn’t practise it all that much. The chord progression for the intro and verses is G C G and D (repeated). The chorus’s progression is C, D, G, Em, C, D, G, and D7 as the chorus ends.
“Simple Man” is another song that uses just the one chord progression from start to finish: C, G, and Am. That’s all there is to it, but the original recording features some nice finger-style playing by I think three guitars:
“La Bamba” is another one-chord progression song. While the original recording as well as the version recorded for the movie both feature several guitars playing different parts, the bare bones of the song consists of C, F, and G7 from start to finish:
