Baby Won’t You Please Come Home | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7#5 |
Verse 1
||: D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7 :||
Baby won’t you please come home, ’cause your mama’s all alone.
I have cried in vain, never no more to call your name.
When you left you broke my heart, ’cause I never thought we’d part.
Turnaround 1
| G G#dim7 | A7 B7 |
Every hour in the day you hear me say,
| Em7 A7 | D7 B7 | Em7 A7 | D7 A7 |
baby please come home, baby please come home.
Solo
||: D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7 :|| x3
| G7 G#dim7 | A7 B7 |
| Em7 A7 | D7 B7 | Em7 A7 | D7 A7 |
Verse 2
Baby won’t you please come home, ’cause your mama’s all alone.
I have cried in vain, never no more to call your name.
When you left you broke my heart, ’cause I never thought we’d part.
Turnaround 2
| G G#dim7 | A7 B7 |
Every hour in the day you hear me say,
| Em7 A7 | D7 B7 | Em7 A7 | D7 B7 |
baby please come home, baby please come home.
| Em7 | Gm7 | D7 N.C | N.C D7 | D7 |
I said Baby, please come on home.
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home Chords: Learn the progressions
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home‘s chords are classic jazz/blues territory with its I7 – VIx7 – II – V, for the main part, and two II – V – I progressions for the turnaround.
Here’s the verse progression:
||: D7 (I) | B7 (VIx) | Em7 (II) | A7 (V) :||
There is TAB available of how I played this in the video, here’s a link to that part of the lesson: Baby Won’t You Please Come Home Guitar Lesson + TAB.
The turnaround starts on chord IV and ascends, a great contrast to the verse, like this:
| G (IV) G#dim7 (#IVdim7) | A7 (V) B7 (VIx) |
| Em7 (II) A7 (V) | D7 (I) B7 (VIx) |
| Em7 (II) A7 (V) | D7 (I) A7 (V) |
These two simple chord progressions set a great testing ground for you to practice your modal scales (Mixolydian and Dorian) and arpeggios.
When you get good at this, all you need as a guide is a simple chord chart, here’s one I made for you.
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Baby Won’t You Please Come Home Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Baby Won’t You Please Come Home iReal Pro.
Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key. This is essential if you are to become great at soloing, you must take these types of tunes through all twelve keys, just like Charlie Parker did.
Use Baby Won’t You Please Come Home to learn how to solo over a Jazz Standard using modes and arpeggios!
Having played Baby Won’t You Please Come Home’s chord progressions and thought of what number each chord has, you must keep this in mind as you solo.
When using modes and arpeggios for soloing over this piece, you need to apply the new chord = new scale/arpeggio method.
Should the chord be an Em7, then you think chord II which means E Dorian, or an Em7 arpeggio. The Conspirian scale would also work.
For the A7, which is chord V, you could use a Major Pentatonic, Mixolydian, or a Dom7 arpeggio.
It is imperative that you can do this to any chord of the progression, anywhere on the neck. From here, the next step will be to arpeggio substitute. By doing so you create a bigger sound.
For the A7, you could play a C#m7b5 arpeggio and automatically hit the dom9 extension.
You could even think of this chord as a place where you could extend to dom7b9, creating an altered sound,
Use the upper part of that idea (dom7b9) and you’ll find a Gdim7 arpeggio. A diminished arpeggio can be moved around in minor thirds, giving you the opportunity to move the same idea up or down the fretboard.
The rabbit hole goes seemingly deep, but really, it comes down to knowing the basics very well in all positions.
To achieve this, you must practice in all five CAGED positions and all twelve keys.
In the TAB lesson (link above) you get a complete solo guide, listing all arpeggios and scales I used during the improvised solo.
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home is a Jazz Standard!
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home is a jazz/blues, written by Clarence Williams.
Sung by Bessie Smith, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Ella Fitzgerald, it has earned the stripes to be referred to as a jazz standard.
As you learn Baby Won’t You Please Come Home, play the chord progression whilst simultaneously singing the root and saying the number of each chord as they pass by. Do this and you will soon feel the chords as Roman Numerals.
You must make this switch from thinking of chords as names to Roman Numerals in order to successfully play jazz solos, there is simply no other way.
If you find doing this too difficult in a jazz context, start by recognising my top 10 chord progressions.
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home Chords | Related Pages
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home | Guitar Lesson + TAB
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home will soon be available as eight step-by-step guitar lessons. Until then, there’s the complete TAB for what I play in the video.
| D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7 |
Baby won’t you please come home, ’cause your mama’s all alone.
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- All Of Me chords by Frank Sinatra
- Blue Moon chords by Billie Holiday
- Don’t Wait Too Long chords by Madeleine Peyroux
- Dream A Little Dream chords by Mama Cass
- L-O-V-E chords by Nat King Cole
Bessie Smith tunes
One of the first famous blues singers to record, Bessie Smith, is an icon that most greats looked up to.
Her biggest hits include The St. Louis Blues, Downhearted Blues, Baby Won’t You Please Come Home, and T’ain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do.
Bessie Smith on the web
Clarence Williams tunes
Clarence Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, promoter, vocalist, theatrical producer, and publisher.
Touring and recording with some of the most legendary blues artists of his time, Clarence Williams spent time with W.C Hardy, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong.
Clarence Williams on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Baby Won’t You Please Come Home chords, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
