Mustang Sally | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Verse 1
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Mustang Sally, huh, uh. Guess you better slow your Mustang down.
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Oh Lord, what I say now.
| F7 | F7 | F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Mustang Sally now baby, oh Lord. Guess you better slow your Mustang down, huh, oh yeah.
| G7 | G7 |
You’ve been running all over the town now.
| F7 N.C | N.C | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Oh, I’ll guess I have to put your flat feet on the ground, huh. What I said now.
Chorus 1
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
Listen, all you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride) huh.
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
All you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride) uh.
| F7 | F7 | F7 | F7 |
All you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride) huh.
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
All you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride) oh Lord.
| G7 | G7 |
One of these early mornings, yeah.
| F7 N.C | N.C | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
You gonna be wiping those weeping eyes, huh. What I said now.
Verse 2
I bought you a brand new Mustang, a 1965, ha.
Now you come around signifyin’ a woman, you don’t wanna let me ride.
Mustang Sally now baby. Oh Lord, guess you better slow that Mustang down. Ha, oh Lord, listen.
You’ve been running all over the town.
Oh, I’ll have to put your flat feet on the ground, ha, what I said now. Listen one more time y’all.
Chorus 2
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
All you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride).
| C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
All you wanna do is ride around Sally (ride, Sally, ride).
| F7 | F7 | F7 | F7 | to fade
All you wanna do is ride around Sally, oh yeah (ride, Sally, ride).
Mustang Sally Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning Mustang Sally. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Should you want to play along with The Commitments recorded version, you need to tune your guitar sharp to 445Hz. In the backing tracks, I’ve done this job for you by tuning it to 440Hz.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
The ultimate covers band tune, Mustang Sally, wether by The Commitments or the original Wilson Pickett recording, doesn’t feature any complicated chords—that’s for sure!
All we’re dealing with here is a simple blues, although the structure is longer expected. It’s a 24-bar progression, not a 12-bar one, like this:
||: C7 (I) | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
| F7 (IV) | F7 | F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
| G7 (V) | G7 | F7 N.C | N.C | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 :||
To get TAB for exactly how to play these chords, keep scrolling down this guitar lesson.
You may wonder, why has Mustang Sally become so popular with audiences and bands over the years? I believe it’s due to two extremely important factors:
- Simple chords and structure, making it accessible to any musician
- Audience participation (“Ride Sally, ride”)
These two points remain just as relevant today. If you want to pen a hit, make sure it’s easy for other people to play and find a way for the audience to get involved.
Music history is filled with similar examples, whether for a dance craze (e.g., Do You Love Me, Get Ready, Twist & Shout) or in the modern era, with fans creating YouTube videos (Happy and Can’t Stop the Feeling).
Here’s a chord chart. You could even give this to people as a joke, as it’s universally understood that everyone knows how to play the chords in Mustang Sally!
Mustang Sally Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
To download my chart and spread it, use either of these two formats:
Mustang Sally | TAB
Let’s go through five ideas for how you could play this classic.
The first example comes straight from the original recording and perfectly shows how this groove is all about discipline.
The next idea simply adds more — three strings for the C chord at first, then scaling back to two as we move to the F chord. Which sound do you prefer?
Idea 3 takes on a honky-tonk approach.
Idea 4 drops the root and focuses on two strings, moving up to include a dominant 7th.
Finally, we shift position and apply everything we’ve learned to an E-shaped C chord. For the F, we stay put rather than chasing extensions.
Once you can play through all this TAB, think about how much more freedom you’ll have when you return to the chord chart and jam along with the backing tracks.
Mustang Sally Chords: Continue Learning
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