Everybody Hurts | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: 6/8 D | D | G5 | G5 :||
Verse 1
||: D | D | G5 | G5 :||
When your day is long.
And the night, the night is yours alone.
When you’re sure you’ve had enough.
| D | D | G5 | G5 G5/F# |
Of this life, well hang on.
Chorus 1
||: Em | Em | A | A :||
Don’t let yourself go.
‘Cause everybody cries.
| Em | Em | A | A N.C |
And everybody hurts.
Chorus tag 1
||: D | D | G5 | G5 :||
Sometimes. Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it’s time to sing along.
Verse 2
When your day is night alone (hold on).
(Hold on) If you feel like letting go (hold on).
If you think you’ve had too much.
Of this life, well hang on.
Chorus 2
||: Em | Em | A | A :||
‘Cause everybody hurts.
Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts.
Middle 8
| F# | F# | Bm | Bm | F# | F# | Bm | Bm |
Don’t throw your hand, oh, no.
| F# | F# | Bm | Bm |
Don’t throw your hand.
| C | C | G | G |
If you feel like you’re alone.
| C | C C/B | Am | Am N.C |
No, no, no, you are not alone.
Verse 3 (as verse 1)
If you’re on your own.
In this life, the days and nights are long.
When you think you’ve had too much.
Of this life, to hang on to.
Chorus 3
Well, everybody hurts.
Well, sometimes everybody cries.
| Em | Em | A | A N.C | N.C |
Everybody hurts.
Outro (chorus tag)
||: D | D | G5 | G5 | D | D | G5 | G5 :||
Sometimes. And everybody hurts, sometimes.
So hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on.
Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on.
Everybody hurts.
Everybody Hurts Chords: Learn the Easy Verse and Chorus Progressions
The chords for Everybody Hurts are simple, and the picking pattern is easy to memorise.
Played in the key of D, the verse follows this progression:
||: D (I) | D | G5 (IV) | G5 :||
The chorus is just as straightforward. In fact, it’s identical to Mad World’s chords—just played at a slower tempo—as it moves between II and V, like this:
||: Em (II) | Em | A (V) | A :||
I like to incorporate the bass line into the picking pattern—you’ll need TAB to see how. Here’s a link to that part of the lesson: Everybody Hurts – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
After the chorus, there’s a tag using the same chords as the verse, which also serves as the outro.
Middle 8
The middle 8 is where the song takes off, shifting to a IIIx – VI progression on repeat:
||: F# (IIIx) | F# | Bm (VI) | Bm :||
This is followed by a modulation to the key of C, moving through I – V before descending from I to VI, like this:
| C (I) | C | G (V) | G |
| C | C C/B | Am (VI) | Am N.C |
After this departure, the song returns to a verse and chorus in D, before ending with that tag once again, now as the outro.
Here’s a chord chart I made for you.
Everybody Hurts Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
The chord chart above is fairly straightforward—the only potential point of confusion is how the Coda directs you back to the intro, which also serves as the chorus tag.
When writing chord charts, the goal is to keep them as clean as possible. If a section is musically identical to another, it makes sense to reuse it rather than notate it separately.
If you’d like to download the chart, here’s a PDF: Everybody Hurts chord chart PDF.
This chart was created using iRealPro—here’s a link to the iRealPro file: Everybody Hurts chord chart iReal Pro. If you have the iRealPro app, you can easily transpose it into a different key.
Just keep in mind that changing the key will affect the picking pattern…
Everybody Hurts is one of the best songs you’ll probably never get a chance to play!
Featured on R.E.M.‘s eighth studio album, Automatic for the People (1992), this ballad charted moderately well in a few countries, though it wasn’t the band’s biggest success at the time.
Instead, Everybody Hurts has since become something of a modern classic, regularly appearing on “greatest songs of all time” lists. For example, Q Magazine ranked it at number 31 on their 1001 Best Songs Ever.
If not for its subject matter and middle 8, I’d nominate Everybody Hurts as the best beginner song of all time. But if you’re teaching kids to play guitar, their parents might not be thrilled to hear them come home strumming a song about suicide!
For a covers band or solo performer, it’s also a terrible choice—this is guaranteed to kill the mood at any party.
Even now, three decades after first learning Everybody Hurts, I still wonder—when exactly is the right time to play this? A funeral seems the least appropriate!
Everybody Hurts Chords: Continue Learning
Want to master this song? Check out the full TAB lesson here: Everybody Hurts (R.E.M.) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Alternatively, here are five similar tunes you might enjoy: