Chords for Margaritaville Free Guitar Lesson, Jimmy Buffett

[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _
_ [A] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ Great campfire song, [N] Margaritaville.
Really short look today at what you have to do to play the three chords involved and
maybe a little bit of lead, so, or the intro.
It's actually a pretty cool intro.
So, just want to take a short look at a really easy way to play Margaritaville.
Not that there's a really hard way to go along with it.
So, Margaritaville,
perfect calypso kind of folk song.
This is, it's a great tune.
All you need is really two chords,
well, three.
You gotta play G too.
D, G, and A7.
Three chords.
D, G, and A, or A7.
Chords in the key of D.
Chords numbers 1, [D] 4, and 5.
So, we're in the key of D, and what Jimmy Buffett has [N] done here is made a really, really simple chord progression.
It's two eight measure phrases,
_ where the first eight measure phrase starts on D and ends on A7, and
the [A] second one starts on A7 and ends on D.
So, what we have is six measures [D] of D.
_ _ You can just do this with this really simple strum. _ _ _ _
[D#] You could do it with a [D] little bit more. _ _ _ _
_ Now, what [N] I'm doing right there is killing the strings on the second and fourth beats by laying my fourth finger down
across [D] the string. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Now, that's the same strum.
Down, down, up, up, down, up.
But, on the second down and the fourth down, or the second and fourth beats, I could mute them with my left hand.
1, 2, and 3, and 4, and.
[Gm] Then, we have [A] this cool little effect of like a snare drum being [N] played on beats 2 and 4 for a
standard rock and roll song.
Anyway, so all you have to do to get through Margaritaville, oh, there's a fourth chord.
There's a secondary dominant.
At one point, we threw in a D7, and you could use that D7 anytime
the next chord is G, because D7 would be chord 5, the dominant chord, in the key of G.
You could always leave it out every time, too.
So, and all the A7s could be A's.
So, the seven chords in this song are totally optional. _ _
The intro, though, has a pretty cool thing in it, and what it is is notes out of the chord.
So, what I'm playing right here, notes out of the D chord.
I'm at the fifth fret of the first string,
I'm the seventh fret [F#m] of the second string.
These are notes 3 and 5 of a D chord.
It's F sharp and A.
So, what we're playing is a set of notes that are
parallel thirds.
It's F sharp and A,
_ _ moving [E] back a whole step to E and [D] G, and then [A] the same little riff, and that happens over [D] D chord.
_ _ And the intro goes to G right away.
[G] _ _ _ [D#] Keeps the [F#m] same melody going.
[A] _ _ When it gets to the A7 chord, the third measure, it moves up two parallel thirds out of the G chord, G and B.
These would be notes 1 and 3 of a G chord.
So, I'm at the seventh fret of the first string [B] and the eighth fret of the [G] second string. _ _
_ Finger-wise, if I've got two notes that are two frets apart,
I'd use my first and third fingers.
And if I have two notes that are one fret apart,
I'd use my second and third fingers.
I can't show you those very well.
You get the [F#m] idea, though.
Too much coordination required.
So, [N] what that does is it keeps my third finger on the second string the [G] whole time, _ _
_ _ [F#m] _ [Em] _ [C] and [D] then landing back on a D chord.
And through that whole sequence,
[N] so very _ slowly_
Oh, another important thing.
I'm gonna keep this hand going down and up [F#m] just as if I was strumming the chord.
I'm not gonna do this.
[Em] _ [A] _
_ _ [Em] _ [A] _ _ [G#] Doesn't sound as good, does it?
That's because the timing wasn't as crisp as if I [F#m] did this.
[A] _ _
_ _ [F#m] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ And you can also [G#] slide from the last pair of _ [D] notes
_ [C] [E] to the G and the E,
[A] _
_ [D] going into [A] that.
Make it sound a little bit cooler.
Well, smoother, maybe.
I don't know if it's cooler.
_ Alright, I'm gonna run through
[N]
one verse and one chorus of this, just so you can see how it works.
If I'm just gonna play the introduction,
I'm gonna have somebody else play that cool [D] lead. _ _
[G] G.
_ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _
_ [D] _ Two measures of G here, and we're right into the first verse.
_ _ Midland on sponge cake. _
_ _ _ Watching the sun bake.
_ _ _ All those tourists.
Here comes the A7, [A] with oil.
Two measures of this, then we stay on it for [C#] the next line.
_ _ Strummin' my six-string, _ _ _ on my front porch swing,
_ _ _ _ Smell those shrimp there, they can't [D] interpolate.
_ D7 on our way to G.
Now we're [G] in the chorus.
_ Wasted [A] away again in [D] _ Margaritaville.
Throw the D7 back in there. _
Same [G] line, same sequence.
[A] My, I've lost shaker [D] of salt.
Now here we have a half-measure change coming up.
_ [G] _ Some people [A] claim that there's [D] a _ [A] woman [G] over there.
But [A] I know it's _ _ _ _ [D] nobody's fault. _ _ _ _
_ _ Okay, there's not a better [A#] campfire song than that.
Well, there are a lot of really good campfire songs.
This is one of them.
_ _ And I have one more thing to tell you about.
Oh, the half-measure change.
When we get into the second line, third line of the chorus, _
some people claim there's a woman to blame.
Woman to blame.
When that happens, each chord happens for only two beats.
[D] Just hit it, hold it, keep moving through the second beat.
One, [A] two, three, four, and then pick the [G] strum right back up.
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] Now notice when I was playing it that time through,
I wasn't doing the muted [A] strum.
I was just doing it straight [N] with the simple strum.
Part of what makes this a great campfire song.
So if you have trouble figuring out where the words go,
listen to the original.
Great tune.
Find it someplace.
Buy the record.
Buy the CD.
I'm not sure if it's even on a record anymore,
but records were out when this first came out.
_ Okay, that's it for Margaritaville.
You got