Chords for Just A Song Before I Go - Crosby, Stills & Nash Free Guitar Lesson

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ Graham Nash, beautiful tune, just a song before I go, that he of course wrote kind of on a bet
in the airport.
Somebody bet if he couldn't write a song it was probably Crosby.
[A] Actually,
Crosby probably said, I wouldn't bet that, [Eb] but bet him that he couldn't write a song before they had
to board the plane.
I think Nash won this bet.
Threw this song together probably in about 10
minutes.
_ Very neat, simple chord progression.
Borrow some chords, not all from the same keys,
but it's just a very simple strumming song.
Again, haunting, beautiful melody.
_ _ Chords are fairly normal, but we do have to get to B minors.
We've got a couple bar chords we
have to play.
Now, I'm playing [Eb] this in the key of E minor, so we're starting with an [Em] E minor chord.
They're actually a whole [Gb] step higher than that, so if you decide you've got to try this with the
album, put a capo at the second fret and play the same chords.
Or, _ play the chords all a whole
step higher.
Transpose it so instead of playing [Em] E minor, you play F [Gbm] sharp minor.
[G] Instead of playing
B [Dbm] minor, you play C sharp minor.
Instead of playing [C] C, you play [D] D.
[Eb] You get the idea, hopefully.
So anyhow, if you want to mess with that, go ahead.
But the way Crosby strums this when they
are playing it live is capo to the second fret using the chords that I've got in this chart.
So, that's the way we're going to play it.
This also gives us the added benefit of being able to
sing it a whole step lower than where Nash sings it.
I still can't hit these notes.
They're still
too high for me.
But anyway, so all I want to talk about with this is just keeping a very simple
strumming pattern going.
[Em] Down, down, up, up, down, [E] up.
Our [Eb] strum, you know, pattern 1A.
Well,
I hate labeling strumming patterns, but the thing that this strumming, this pattern has in it that
makes it _ unique and interesting is a slight syncopation created by _ not having a stroke,
missing a down on beat 3.
[Em] Down, down, up, and then moving through beat 3 with missing that down and
continuing.
Down, down, up, up, down, up.
[Eb] You've seen this a million times.
So, all we have to do
is get from E minor _ to B minor to [Bm] _ _ _ C.
Now, you can play the C as a bar if you want.
If you're really
handy with [C] bar chords, it might be an easier change to get from that B minor to a C.
And then
to [Am] A minor, you can even play as a bar up here or you can just [Em] play it there.
In any case, we have
[F] E minor, B minor, C, A minor. _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[Em] So, again, second line's the same and the melody's the [Bm] same.
So,
again, this song is very simple [C] in structure.
It's just got a simple four [Am] chord progression
and now he's got a second four chord progression, [A] dropping down [G] to G _ and F.
Now, there's [F] some
things.
This F sounds great because, [Eb] first of all, it's not in the key.
So, we've kind of left the
key of E minor for a second _ _ and borrowed a chord from a neighboring key, the key of A minor or [G] C.
But you got G to F [F] _ to A [Am] minor and then B minor again.
Now, this B minor [Bm] sounds a little out
of place because of the sound that we just heard with the F.
In [G] any case, the last line, G to F
[F] to A minor and it doesn't really [Am] resolve to B minor.
Instead, we hear [E] a _
_ [E] _ _ _ little bit of [Eb] messing
around.
Okay, this is taken beyond the campfire range of notes that are a sixth apart on the
second and fourth strings.
So, these are notes that are just easy to grab in the A minor chord.
I'll talk more [Db] about this maybe [E] another time.
Peace Train [Am] does this.
There's a lot of_
[E] _ _ _ [A] _
[D] Anyway, okay, parallel sixths on the second and fourth strings.
So, that's usually the little
fills that Crosby throws in there.
Sometimes, he would just do [Am] the little mash thing.
[Em] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
[G] In any case, it ends on that A minor. _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ Then, right back to our E [Eb] minor for our second verse and even into the third verse.
One little
thing happens at the end.
_ They hang on the A minor chord [Am] and _ then it [Em] resolves.
It ends on
E suspended four, which is not really a resolution.
[E] _ _ _ _
_ Suspended four chord played like with our normal
fingering [Eb] for E, but rather than having your first finger on the first fret of the third string,
G sharp, you raise the G sharp to an A on the second [E] fret.
_ _ _ You're right.
Beginning chord to
behind blue eyes.
[Eb] _ _ _ _
That's it for just a song before I go.
Just got to strum through it and sing it.
_ Beautiful tune.
[A] Just got to be pretty handy at playing bar chords.
Even if you capo it,
_ still going to have [Gbm] the same chords.
If you want _ [Dbm] to play it in the real key without the
capo, you're going to have even more bar chords.
_ No, you're still only going to have [N] two, but it's
going to be two different ones.
Oh well. _ _
So, there you go.
Practice just strumming through it and
maybe sometime on a TG Live, we'll have a little sing-along with this so I can recruit somebody
that I know can hit the notes.
So, hope you enjoy that Graham Nash tune.