Hound Dog | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| N.C |
Verse 1
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
| F | F F7 | C7 | C7 |
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
| G (G7) | F (F7) | N.C | N.C |
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Verse 2
Well, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Yeah, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Yeah, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Verse 3
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Solo 1
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
| F (F7) | F (F7) | C7 | C7 |
| G (G7) | F (F7) | C7 | C7 |
Verse 4
Well, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Yeah, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Solo 2
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
| F (F7) | F (F7) | C7 | C7 |
| G (G7) | F (F7) | C7 | C7 |
Verse 5
Well, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Yeah, they said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Verse 6
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.
| G (G7) N.C | N.C | N.C | Db6/9 C6/9 |
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Hound Dog Chords: Learn the progressions
What exact chords Elvis himself plays on the acoustic is not that interesting or important, it’s what his side man, Scotty Moore, does that we all want to find out more about.
Or perhaps even more importantly, what can you do if called upon to play Hound Dog in a live band, as the only guitarist?
I’ve designed some TAB so you can play this Elvis classic in a band, here’s a link: Hound Dog – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
We start with what Scotty did note for note, then modify it as what he played worked because his guitar doesn’t have much low end and there was a double bass.
If you play this with an electric bass player and a fuller guitar sound, things will get too muddy so after looking at Scotty’s part – we modify it!
Once you got the TAB down and decided how much of Scotty’s original part and my modified ideas you want to use, you could just read the chords as a reminder and think in Roman Numerals, like this:
||: C7 (I) | C7 | C7 | C7 |
| F (IV) | F7 F | C7 | C7 |
| G IV) G7 | F F7 | N.C | N.C :||
The solo chords are the same, just playing a C7 in the last two bars rather than stopping. Speaking of the solo, you get TAB for this too, and could use those ideas for another hundred songs in this style!
Here’s a chord chart you can bring to the gig.
Hound Dog Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Hound Dog Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Hound Dog iReal Pro.
Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key. This may be. a great idea when practising playing the solo!
Hound Dog was one of many covers Elvis sang!
A classic among early Rock N’ Roll tunes, Elvis’s Hound Dog shook the world and got all the girls screaming.
It wasn’t actually his own composition, or a tune written for him as he would experience later in his career. Hound Dog was a Big Mama Thornton cover, but Elvis certainly made it his own.
The writers, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, initially didn’t like Elvis’s version. Apparently, it sounded too white, but claimed that 7-8 million sales later, it started to sound better to them!
Lieber and Stoller would later write Jailhouse Rock, Love Me, Loving You, Don’t, and King Creole for Elvis.
Hound Dog Chords | Related Pages
Hound Dog | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn how to play Hound Dog by Elvis Presley using TAB and chord analysis.
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Blue Suede Shoes chords by Elvis
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love chords by Queen
- Faith chords by George Michael
- I Saw Her Standing There chords by The Beatles
- Jailhouse Rock chords by Elvis
Elvis Presley tunes
Elvis Presley didn’t just change music by popularising Rock N Roll and becoming the world’s first superstar, he changed the world.
Hits include Jailhouse Rock, Heartbreak Hotel, Don’t Be Cruel, Blue Suede Shoes, In The Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, and (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear.
Elvis Presley on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Hound Dog 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.
