Bryan Adams – Summer of 69,words and chords

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What a classic song. Catchy and in an easy key, D,A,G,Bm, right up to the bridge where it gets a bit harder and along comes F and worst of all Bb – Bb (Bflat)  is otherwise known as a barchord at the first fret with your 2nd 3rd and 4th fingers holding down the ‘A’ shape and is one of the hardest barchords for beginners but hey! thats not us, right !! Check out my strumming page.

If we are learning this song on acoustic guitar, as opposed to a full on electric approach, then we would start the song on the D chord strumming down 8 downstrums to the bar similar to the way the electric gat kicks the song off. Sort of a powerchord feel. Keep that up through the D A D A (4 bars) until after “it was the summer of 69” then swap to a regular ‘down down up up down’ strum until you get to the first chord fill thingy, that great signature riff.OK I admit this is tricky. Lets do the D chord lick first. On the first string it goes   0 2 3 2 0 2 (fret numbers) This is Dsus2 D Dsus4 D Dsus2 D (Dsus2 is where you play D and then lift up your 2nd finger to let the open 1st string sound, Dsus4 is where you play D then add your little finger on the 3rd fret of the 1st string ) The timing is the thing.

It’s a 2 bar riff and very syncopated (offbeat) I have written the 2 bars here with the notes in bold.

1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&

If I was playing this by myself I would strum it so it would go –

down down up up down down down up up down down (I edited that strum pattern in a couple of days ago and looking at it tonight it doesn’t make sense!! – It should be

1_2&_&4_1&_&3_4

down down up up down down up up down down )

Dsus2 Dsus2 D D Dsus4 Dsus4 D D Dsus2 D

You should be able to print this if you click it once to open it on another page and then hover over and select the print icon. If you are out of paper save it to your desktop or other place.

Cool Bryan Adams Site

~ by jdguitar on July 14, 2006.