Into The Great Wide Open | Chords + Lyric
Intro
||: Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 :||
Verse 1
| Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 |
Eddie waited ’til he finished high school.
| Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 |
He went to Hollywood, got a tattoo.
| Am Am7/G | Am/F# Am7/G |
He met a girl out there with a tattoo too.
| G Fadd9 | C G | C G |
The future was wide open.
Verse 2
They moved into a place they both could afford.
He found a nightclub, he could work at the door.
She had a guitar and she taught him some chords.
| G Fadd9 | C G | C G | C G D5 D |
The sky was the limit.
Chorus 1
| G Cadd9 | Dadd4 |
Into the great wide open.
| G Em | Dadd4 Dadd4/A |
Under them skies of blue.
| G Cadd9 | Dadd4 |
Out in the great wide open.
| G Fadd9 | Em Asus2 G | C G | C G |
A rebel without a clue.
Instrumental 1
||: Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 :||
Verse 3 (as verse 1)
The papers said Ed always played from the heart.
He got an agent and a roadie named Bart.
They made a record, and it went in the charts.
The sky was the limit.
Verse 4 (as verse 2)
His leather jacket had chains that would jingle.
They both met movie stars, partied, and mingled.
Their A&R man said, “I don’t hear a single”.
The future was wide open.
Chorus 2
| G Cadd9 | Dadd4 |
Into the great wide open.
| G Em | Dadd4 Dadd4/A |
Under them skies of blue.
| G Cadd9 | Dadd4 |
Out in the great wide open.
| G Fadd9 | Em Asus2 |
A rebel without a clue.
Chorus 3 (as chorus 1)
Into the great wide open.
Under them skies of blue.
Into the great wide open.
A rebel without a clue.
Into The Great Wide Open Chords: Learn the progressions
Tom Petty‘s epic Into The Great Wide Open has two chords that remind me of another three songs.
The first is the Em chords during the intro and verse. They remind me of My Funny Valentine’s chords.
The second progression is what comes up next, the Am chords with a falling bass line. This reminds me of Sunny Afternoon’s chords.
The third is that Dadd4, a chord with both the sus4 and 3rd. This is the same chord that R.E.M. plays in their Man On The Moon.
Making connections like this is important in order to understand music on a deeper level, it doesn’t mean that Tom stole or ripped off those songs, it’s just common chord progression language.
On the record, Tom and Mike have as usual layered several parts that sound great but won’t help you on next Saturday night’s gig as there are two of them but only one of you.
To help you with this dilemma, O\ve designed some TAB for what would work in a live band as the only guitarist.
Here’s a link to that part of this lesson: Into The Great Wide Open – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Let’s take a look at the chords of Into The Great Wide Open and see if we can make sense of what’s going on. The intro looks like this:
||: Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 :||
This is chord VI (Aeolian) with a falling extension, not the bass line. Chromatically, we go from the root, maj7, b7, to 6. 6 is Dorian, not Aeolian so this is a modal interchange.
As the verse starts, we stay with the same chords before we move up to chord II and do almost the same thing, although now, the bass does fall – genius!
| Am Am7/G | Am/F# Am7/G |
The final line holds even more chord wisdom from Tom as we get another modal interchang! This time Em is Phrygian (chord III from the key of C).
| G Fadd9 | C G | C G |
During the verse, we’ve had Em presented to us as if it could be chord VI, II, or III and it doesn’t feel unnatural at all.
As we finish verse 2, we play a D5, cleverly disguising if this is a Dm or D chord.
The chorus makes it obvious that we are in the key of G (same as Em) as it’s the good old I – IV – V, like this:
| G (I) Cadd9 (IV) | Dadd4 (V) |
| G (I) Em (VI) | Dadd4 (V) Dadd4/A |
| G Cadd9 | Dadd4 |
The final line uses an F chord again, making it a possible modal interchange again but if you listen rather than think, it’s clear this is a back door dominant, or as I like to describe it, a bVIIx.
These are all the chords you’ll find in Into The Great Wide Open, which, considering they go outside the key so much is probably a good thing. You do need to repeat this kind of stuff to make it feel natural.
After looking at my TAB and playing along with the original recording, a simple chord chart is all you need, here’s one I made for you.
Into The Great Wide Open Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
After all that TAB and chord theory, the chord chart above looks so simple!
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Into The Great Wide Open Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Into The Great Wide Open iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Into The Great Wide Open cast Johnny Dep as the Rebel
The stars certainly aligned when Tom Petty wanted to make his music video for Into The Great Wide Open and the indie comedy-drama Arizona Dream (1993) unexpectedly went into hiatus.
Movie stars Johnny Depp, Gabrielle Anwar, and Faye Dunaway now found themselves playing Eddie Rebel, his girlfriend, and manager in Tom Petty’s music video instead.
As the song has such genius storytelling, this wasn’t difficult to achieve, just costly to set all the scenes and get a cast of this kind of quality.
The result may be one of the best music videos ever made.
Into The Great Wide Open Chords | Related Pages
Into The Great Wide Open | Guitar Lesson + TAB
In this lesson, you’ll get TAB for how you could play Into The Great Wide Open as the only guitarist in the band, a combination of Mike and Tom’s original parts.
| Em Emmaj7 | Em7 Em6 |
Eddie waited ’til he finished high school…
Five Similar Tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- (Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay chords by Otis Redding
- The Joker chords by The Steve Miller Band
- Learning To Fly chords by Tom Petty
- Man On The Moon chords by R.E.M.
- Sunny Afternoon chords by The Kinks
Tom Petty tunes
Tom Petty released most of his albums with his band The Heartbreakers although some solo material appeared as well.
His best-known tunes include American Girl, Free Fallin’, Learning To Fly, Into The Great Wide Open, Don’t Come Around Here No More, and I Won’t Back Down.
Tom Petty on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Into The Great Wide Open 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.
