King Of The Road | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| Bb Bb/D | Eb | F | F |
Verse 1
| Bb | Eb | F | Bb |
Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents.
| Bb | Eb | F7 N.C | N.C |
No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes.
| Bb | Eb | F | Bb |
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom, buys an eight by twelve four-bit room.
| Bb | Eb | F7 N.C | N.C |
I’m a man of means by no means, King of the road.
Verse 2 (same as verse 1)
Third boxcar, midnight train. Destination Bangor, Maine.
Old, worn-out suit and shoes, I don’t pay no union dues.
I smoke old stogies I have found, short, but not too big around.
I’m a man of means by no means, King of the road.
Verse 3 (key change, short)
| B | E | F# | B |
I know every engineer on every train. All of their children, and all of their names.
| B | E | F#7 N.C | N.C |
And every handout in every town. And every lock that ain’t locked, when no one’s around.
Verse 4
| B | E | F# | B |
I sing, Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents.
| B | E | F#7 N.C | N.C |
No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes.
| B | E | F# | B |
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom, buys an eight by twelve four-bit room.
| B | E | F#7 N.C | N.C |
I’m a man of means by no means, King of the road.
Verse 5 (same as verse 4)
Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes.
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom, buys an eight by twelve four-bit room.
I’m a man of means by no means, King of the road.
King Of The Road Chords: Learn the progressions
A classic country tune in an odd key we find in King Of The Road by singer-songwriter Roger Miller.
As you can see in the video above when Roger plays it himself, there are no open-position cowboy chords here, instead, we play barre chords, initially from the key of Bb.
As far as the chord progression goes, it’s the good old I – IV – V, only varied with a stop every other time. After two verses, we modulate a semitone up from Bb to B and play a shorter verse, that’s the only variation!
This is songwriting in its simplest form, we essentially have one idea over 8 bars, and then repeat it, like this:
||: Bb (I) | Eb (IV) | F (V) | Bb (I) |
| Bb (I) | Eb (IV) | F7 (V) N.C | N.C :||
When the key change happens and we play the shorter verse, King Of The Road’s chords look like this:
| B (I) | E (IV) | F# (V) | B (I) |
| B | E | F#7 N.C | N.C |
When it comes to the melody and lyrics of King of The Road, that idea stretches over 16 bars (apart from that short verse after the key change).
This slight variation of one idea repeating over 8 bars (the chords), and the other idea repeating over 16 bars (the lyrics/melody) is genius.
Most songwriters that I’ve come across suffer from trying to cram too many ideas into one song, next time that happens, I’m playing them King Of The Road!
I’ve designed some TAB for you that will work if you play in a band. Here’s a link to that part of the lesson: King Of The Road – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
When you’ve been through the TAB and played with the original recording, you’re ready to gig this hilarious tune. Here’s a chord chart I made to keep you on track.
King Of The Road Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: King Of The Road Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: King Of The Road iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
King Of The Road bagged 5 Grammy Awards!
Roger Miller released King Of The Road in 1965 as a single from the album The Return Of Roger Miller.
This was his 2nd album and he had already had a hit with Dang Me the year before so the stage was set for his signature song to make him world famous.
King Of The Road hit #1 in the U.S., Norway and England. The following year it won 5 Grammy Awards, and further spreading the word about Miller’s lighthearted songwriting.
A few cover versions have surfaced, I’m thinking of The Proclaimers (1991), Randy Travis (1997) and the one with rewritten lyrics, Queen Of The House (1965), by Jody Miller who you’d be forgiven for thinking was related to Roger, she’s not.
There’s also a live, drunken version by R.E.M. who later commented it was so bad Roger Miller should have sued them for it.
You can hear all these versions in the playlist at the top of this page.
King Of The Road Chords | Related Pages
King Of The Road | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play King Of The Road by Roger Miller using TAB and chord analysis.
| Bb | Eb | F | Bb |
Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
Roger Miller tunes
Roger Miller started out as a songwriter in the 50s and released his own tunes in the 60s. In the 70s, he went back to being a songwriter again, now for Disney.
His best-known tunes include Billy Bayou, Oo-De-Lally, Dang Me, England Swings, and his signature song King Of The Road.
Roger Miller on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about King Of The Road 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.
