Like A Rolling Stone | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: C F/C C :|| x 4
Verse 1
| C Dm | Em F | G (G6) | G (G6) |
Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
| C Dm | Em F | G (G6) | G (G6) |
People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’, you thought they were all kidding you.
| F | G | F | G |
You used to laugh about, everybody that was hanging out.
| F Em | Dm7 C | F Em | Dm7 C |
Now you don’t talk so loud, now you don’t seem so proud.
| Dm7 | F (F6) | G | G |
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
Chorus 1
||: C F | G | C F | G :||
How does it feel, how does it feel? To be without a home.
Like a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.
Instrumental 1
| C F | G | C F | G | G (G6) |
Verse 2
| C Dm | Em F | G | G |
Ahh, you’ve gone to the finest schools, alright, Miss Lonely but you know you only used to get juiced in it.
| C Dm | Em F | G | G |
Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you’re gonna have to get used to it.
| F | G | F | G |
You say you never compromise, with the mystery tramp, but now you realize.
| F Em | Dm7 C | F Em | Dm7 C |
He’s not selling any alibis, as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes.
| Dm7 | F (F6) | G (G6) | G (G6) |
And say do you want to, make a deal?
Chorus 2
||: C F | G | C F | G :|| x3
How does it feel? How does it feel? To be on your own.
With no direction home. A complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.
Instrumental 2
| C F | G (G6) | G (G6) |
Verse 3
| C Dm | Em F | G | G |
Ah you never turned around to see the frowns, on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.
| C Dm | Em F | G | G |
You never understood that it ain’t no good, you shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.
| F | G | F | G |
You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat, who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat.
| F Em | Dm7 C | F Em | Dm7 C |
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that, he really wasn’t where it’s at.
| Dm7 | Dm7 F | G | G |
After he took from you everything he could steal.
Chorus 3
||: C F | G | C F | G :|| x3
How does it feel? How does it feel? To be on your own.
With no direction home. Like a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.
Instrumental 3
| C F | G | G |
Verse 4
| C Dm | Em F | G | G |
Ahh princess on a steeple and all the pretty people, they’re all drinking, thinking that they’ve got it made.
| C Dm | Em F | G | G (G6) |
Exchanging all precious gifts, but you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it, babe.
| F | G | F | G |
You used to be so amused at Napoleon in rags and the language that he used.
| F Em | Dm7 C | F Em | Dm7 C |
Go to him he calls you, you can’t refuse. When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
| Dm7 | Dm7 F | G (G6) | G (G6) |
You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal.
Chorus 4
||: C F | G | C F | G :|| x 3
How does it feel? Ah, how does it feel? To be on your own.
With no direction home. Like a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.
Outro
||: C F | G | C F | G :|| to fade
Like A Rolling Stone’s chords and progressions
Bob Dylan‘s masterpiece, Like A Rolling Stone, has chords that are completely diatonic to the key of C.
The intro is just the I chord, moving to the IV, still keeping the bass of chord I, like this:
||: C F/C C :||
Once the verse kicks in, we start climbing up the scale, like this:
| C Dm | Em F | G (G6) | G (G6) |
The G6 doesn’t happen in all verses and is played like a guitar lick. Once we repeated that first idea we go to what almost feels like a bridge:
| F | G | F | G |
Next, we start descending, in contrast to the initial idea, like this:
| F Em | Dm7 C | F Em | Dm7 C |
The final line of the verse is this:
| Dm7 | F (F6) | G | G |
In some verses, this is varied slightly, like this:
| Dm7 | Dm7 F | G | G |
Next up we have the chorus. First of all, I’d like to point out how chorus 1 is shorter than the following choruses, again, use the chords and lyrics above.
Like A Rolling Stone’s chorus chords are a simple I – IV – V, like this:
||: C F | G :||
The instrumental section is the same as the chorus, just hanging on that G for longer before we go back to the verse and do it all over again.
Like A Rolling Stone chords | Related pages
Five similar tunes
- American Pie chords
- House Of The Rising Sun chords
- Losing My Religion chords
- Me and Bobby McGee chords
- Suspicious Minds chords
Bob Dylan
Widely regarded as the most influential artist in popular culture, Bob Dylan has been covered and copied by almost everyone who ever attempted to write a song.
Some say he invented modern songwriting.
Bob Dylan on the web
