I Shot The Sheriff Chords

Learn how to play I Shot The Sheriff!

Spy Tunes one guitar arrangement of I Shot The Sheriff is inspired by the original but also by Eric Clapton’s version.

The verse chord progression is simple and very Aeolian using the IVmaj7 and the IIIm7 to point back to VI.

The natural sadness of Aeolian supports the struggling lyrical theme of why Bob had to shoot the Sheriff.

The world famous riff at 0:53 following “…and I say” use the minor pentatonic scale. Open strings have been applied in order to fatten the sound of the riff.

To get to the original key, use a Capo on fret III. Spy Tunes arrangement use the capo to find open strings in every chord!

Playing with a Capo

In the key of Em we get the advantage that every open string is part of the scale.

By using a capo we can capitalize on this phenomenon in any key.

I Shot The Sheriff is in the key of Gm, but with the capo, we think in Em.

The last looped riff is simply repeating the same idea over and over again.

Customized endings like this make you sound rehearsed, meaning you can keep everything between the intro and end improvised.

Just make sure you fully understand the chord progression.