Call It Stormy Monday | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| Ab9 (Cm7b5) G9 (Bm7b5) | Ab9 (Cm7b5) G9 (Bm7b5) |
Verse 1
| G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Wednesday’s worse, and Thursday’s also sad.
Verse 2
| G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Yes, the eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play.
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Sunday I go to church, then I kneel down and pray.
Solo
| G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Verse 3
| G9 C#9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Lord have mercy, my heart’s in misery.
| D9 | C9 | G9 C9 | G9 Ab9 G9 | G9 ||
Crazy about my Baby, yes, send her back to me.
Call It Stormy Monday Chords: Learn the progressions
The slightly odd-looking chords you see sliding around in Call It Stormy Monday are in fact 9 chords.
The theoretical jazz chord police might go as far as to say that T-Bone Walker was using chord substitution, playing a Bm7b5 in an Am shape instead of a G9.
The trick is repeated for the IV chord. Instead of a C9, play an Em7b5, now in a Dm shape.
The same goes for those chromatic approach chords, Ab9 is played like a Cm7b5, and C#9 is played like an Fm7b5.
All you have to do is visualize whatever 9-chord you want to play, then start the m7b5 chord shape on the 3rd.
You can learn more about extending chords to min7b5 in my chords course.
Call It Stormy Monday’s chord progression is that of a standard 12-bar blues, just using 9 chords, like this:
||: G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 | C9 | C9 |
| G9 | G9 | D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 :||
Call It Stormy Monday Chords | Related Pages
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
T-Bone Walker tunes
This is it, the root, the granddaddy, the first electric guitar soloist, and most early blues guitar players’ biggest hero: T-Bone Walker.
It was as early as 1929 when T-bone started to record, but as he says: “I’ve been doing it for a long time before that came around”.
T-bone Walker on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Call It Stormy Monday 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 by practising scales or studying theory in isolation.