A-Z Songbook, Intermediate Acoustic, Pop & Rock

In The Ghetto chords by Elvis Presley

Video blocked due to privacy settings

[rcb-consent type=”change” tag=”link” text=”Change privacy settings”]

In The Ghetto | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

||: Bb (Bbsus4) | Bb Bbsus4 Bb :||

Verse 1

Verse 2

And his mama cries.
‘Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need it’s another little hungry mouth to feed.
In the ghetto.

Bridge 1

| F | Eb Bb |
People, don’t you understand, the child needs a helping hand.
| Eb F | Bb |
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man someday.
| F | Eb Bb |
Take a look at you and me, are we too blind to see?
| Eb Dm7 | Cm7 F7 | 2/4 F7 | 4/4
Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?

Verse 3

Well, the world turns.
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose plays in the street as the cold wind blows.
In the ghetto (in the ghetto).

Verse 4

And his hunger burns.
So he starts to roam the streets at night and he learns how to steal and he learns how to fight.
In the ghetto (in the ghetto).

Bridge 2

| F | Eb Bb |
Then one night in desperation, the young man breaks away.
| Eb Dm7 | Cm7 F7 |
He buys a gun, steals a car, tries to run, but he don’t get far.

Verse 5

And his mama cries.
As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man, face down on the street with a gun in his hand.
In the ghetto (in the ghetto).

Verse 6

Outro

||: Bb (Bbsus4) | Bb Bbsus4 Bb :||
And his mama cries (in the ghetto).
(In the ghetto) (Ah).

In The Ghetto Chords: Learn the progressions

In The Ghetto‘s chords are diatonic from the key of Bb.

The main riff is adding and taking away a sus4 extension twice to the I chord in the first bar. In the second bar, it only does it once.

To avoid writing all those chords, I’ve notated it like this above with lyrics:

| Bb (Bbsus4) | Bb Bbsus4 Bb |

Having the sus4 in brackets means, add and then take away, add again. The best way to describe this is to use TAB, here’s a link to that part of the lesson: In The Ghetto – Guitar Lesson with TAB.

Following this static intro, the verse ascends using III – IV – V, like this:

There’s TAB for how this could be played on one guitar as on the original recording, it’s pretty much only that main riff where we hear a guitar on the original recording.

The other section, which I’ve called a bridge, goes V – IV – I, then IV – V – I, repeats the first movements and then descends IV – III – II – V, like this:

||: F (V) | Eb (IV) Bb (I) :|| x3 Eb F | Bb |
| Eb (IV) Dm7 (III) | Cm7 (II) F7 (V) |

When the bridge comes back, it’s much shorter, leaving the first line out, like this:

| F | Eb Bb | Eb Dm7 | Cm7 F7 |

Afetr you’ve gone deep and learned the TAB, studied the chords and lyrics above and played with the original recording, a simple chord chart is good to bring to the gig, here’s one I made for you.

In The Ghetto Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro

Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: In The Ghetto Chord Chart PDF.

This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: In The Ghetto iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.

Changing key is not a problem with In The Ghetto as all the chords are from Bb, you won’t experience the song feeling different if you go up or down a tone or so.

In The Ghetto was a big part of Elvis’s comeback!

In The Ghetto is a single by Elvis Presley from 1969, representing his comeback.

It was a huge success, reaching the top 5 in the charts worldwide, selling a million copies in the U.S. alone.

Previous to the album (From Elvis in Memphis, 1969), he released a Gospel album in 1967 but that had been recorded many years before. There was also a live album in 1968 where he sang old hits.

Disregarding these two releases, Elvis was all about making movies that came with soundtrack albums, something his manager had decided was the best way forward for him.

On the comeback album, In The Ghetto was the only hit, it was the last tune on the B-side.

In The Ghetto Chords | Related Pages

In The Ghetto | Guitar Lesson + TAB

With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play In The Ghetto by Elvis using TAB and chord analysis.

| Bb Bbsus4 | Bb Bbsus4 Bb |
As the snow flies…

Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play In The Ghetto's chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.

Elvis Presley tunes

Elvis Presley didn’t just change music by popularising Rock ‘n’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

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson on In The Ghetto's chords.

This was a guitar lesson about In The Ghetto 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.