How to play Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver is one of the most recognisable Country/Folk style songs of all. Originally a hit record in 1971 it has maintained popularity in the digital era and become an official anthem in West Virginia as well as sporting venues around the world. Take Me Home, Country Roads’ steady medium-tempo rhythm and two-bars-per-chord structure makes it ideal for learner guitarists.
Chords: This G Major version uses G Em C D D7 F (easy version of F). Denver’s original is in A Major, in concert pitch and played without a capo. The chords for this are A F#m D E E7 G ; a difficult key for developing acoustic players as it involves frequent changes to the F#m half-capo chord.
Pick or Fingers? We recommend a pick for basic steel-string strumming but this song is also suitable for fingerstyle.
Acoustic or Electric? The acoustic steel-strings will give you the authentic Country/folk style sound. Electric guitar also works but choose a straight, clean tone on your amp. Nylon-string guitar works well fingerstyle but won’t give you the bright acoustic-steel tone of the original.
Do I need a capo? If you want to play the key of the original recording just fix your capo at the 2nd fret to play this chart.
What are circled numbers for? In guitar notation circled numbers are string designations. The intro features a four-string chord of G played with the 3rd string being picked on the 1st beat, followed by light down - up strums on the 2nd beat, then the 4th string is picked on the 3rd beat, followed by a light downstrum on the 4th beat, and so on.
How does the timing work? The rhythms in Take Me Home, Country Roads are straight country/pop strum patterns; the downstrums are all on the beat and the upstrums are all off the beat. If you’re not sure about how to interpret rhythms like these, read on . . .
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used in Take Me Home, Country Roads see pages 5, 7 - 10, 12, 14, 19 - 21, 36 - 37.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. Available in handy e-book form as well as hard copy, 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.
