Folsom Prison Blues chords by Johnny Cash


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Folsom Prison Blues | Chords + Lyrics


Intro

| N.C C | C7 | F |

Verse 1

| F | F |
I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend.
| F | F |
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when.
| Bb | Bb | F | F |
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on.
| C7 | C7 | F |
But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Antone.

Verse 2

When I was just a baby my mama told me.
“Son, always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns”.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.

Solo 1

| F | F | F | F |
| Bb | Bb | F | F |
| C7 | C7 | F |

Verse 3

I bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee and smoking big cigars
Well I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free
But those people keep a-movin’, and that’s what tortures me.

Solo 2

| F | F | F | F |
| Bb | Bb | F | F |
| C7 | C7 | F |

Verse 4

Well if they freed me from this prison, if that railroad train was mine.
I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line.
Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay.
| C7 | C7 | F | C7 | F |
And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.



Folsom Prison Blues Chords: Learn the progressions


Johnny Cash loves messing with time signatures and dropping bars. In Folsom Prison Blues, he’s taken the last bar out, creating an 11-bar blues!

I find this fascinating as I didn’t even realise it was happening until I started counting!

The intro is 3 bars and uses the same lick that comes back at the end of each verse.

The chords for the intro are V – I, I’ve TABBED this for you, here’s a link to that part of the lesson: Folsom Prison Blues – Guitar Lesson with TAB.

For the F chord, you need to play it using the thumb over the neck so you can release it, creating a short note. The fretting hand needs to be bounding off the strings to create the short notes and that country groove.

If when playing along with the original it feels weird, that’s because Johnny has tuned down from 440Hz to 434Hz. Use my online guitar tuner to reach the same frequency.

Here are the chords for a Folsom Prison Blues verse, they never change (apart from the outro which adds two bars). It moves almost like a standard 12-bar.

||: F (I) | F | F | F |
| Bb (IV) | Bb | F (I) | F |
| C7 (V) | C7 | F (I) :||

After studying the TAB and playing along with Johnny, a simple chord chart is all you need to bring to the gig, here’s one I made for you.


Folsom Prison Blues chord chart.


Folsom Prison Blues Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro


This is a great example of how to solve the arrangement/form of a song in a chart when all there is, is one chord progression.

We have verses and solos but the chords are the same, it becomes more and more cluttered if we try to describe this using bars, chords and segno signs.

The solution is to simply write the form in text as you see in my chart above.

Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDFFolsom Prison Blues Chord Chart PDF.

This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Folsom Prison Blues iReal Pro.

Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key. Although much of the sound is in the key and how we on the guitar play in the key of F.



Folsom Prison Blues was recorded in Folsom Prison!

In 1968, Johnny Cash played a gig at Folsom Prison and recorded it for his live album At Folsom Prison.

As a single from this album, Folsom Prison Blues reached #1 in the country charts and won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal the following year.

Before the success of singing the tune in the actual prison, Cash had written and recorded it already in 1955, on his debut album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar!

From this album, Folsom Prison Blues was released as the second single, and he started almost all his gigs with it.



Folsom Prison Blues Chords | Related Pages


Folsom Prison Blues

Folsom Prison Blues TAB lesson.

With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash using TAB and chord analysis.

F | F |
I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend…


Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play Folsom Prison Blues' chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.


Johnny Cash tunes

Johnny Cash wrote Folsom Prison Blues.

Johnny Cash’s recording career started in 1955 on Sun Records (the same label as Elvis) and ended in 2002 with a masterpiece produced by Rick Rubin.

His best tunes include Ring of Fire, A Boy Named Sue, Hurt, Man in Black, Folsom Prison Blues, Get Rhythm, Personal Jesus, and I Walk The Line.


Johnny Cash on the web

Listen to Johnny Cash on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson about Folsom Prison Blues chords.

This was a guitar lesson about Folsom Prison Blues 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.


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