How to play It’s a Heartache by Bonnie Tyler
A huge hit in 1978, It’s a Heartache brought Bonnie Tyler to international fame and success. The infectious folk tinged, sing-along style has ensured it’s enduring appeal and introduced Bonnie to new generations of listeners. For guitarists, the strong acoustic and electric guitar lines of It’s a Heartache make it a great classic pop choice.
Chords: C2 C Em F G Am G7 G6
Pick or Fingers? The pick will produce the clean, well defined style of the original but the intro and rhythm parts are adaptable to fingerstyle for acoustic players. The electric solo lines are played with a pick, as per classic 70s style.
Acoustic or Electric? Either will work for the rhythm part. The strumming tone on the recording is produced by steel-string guitars but this chart can also work for players learning on nylon-strings ; use a medium-gauge pick and strum on the bridge side of the sound hole.
How does the intro work? The picked arpeggio riff in the intro is a single chord that needs to be held for the whole four bars; don’t try moving from one note to the next. The 4th bar of this chart suggests holding a note for a couple beats to help prepare for the shift to the C in bar 5. Note there is a keyboard mixed in with the guitar in the intro ; you are listening to two instruments.
Do I have to play the F bar-chord? No! (phew!) If you are still learning chords and find the bar-chord shapes too difficult, use the standard four-string version of F (page 19 in MGCS1). Unfortunately there is no ‘easy’ option for F (the version on the original recording is a bar-chord).
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used for It’s a Heartache see pages 5, 8, 9, 12 - 13, 19 - 21 and 34
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.
