Chords + Lyrics | Nowhere To Run
Intro
| N.C | G | G | (bass + drums)
Chorus 1
||: G | F Em C/E | G | F Em C/E :||
Nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
I got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
Verse 1
||: G | F Em C/E | G | F Em C/E :||
It’s not love I’m runnin’ from, just the heartbreak I know will come.
Cause I know you’re no good for me (you’re no good), but you’ve become a part of me.
Breakdown 1
||: N.C | N.C :||
Everywhere I go, your face I see.
Every step I take, you take with me, yeah.
Chorus 2
Nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
Got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
Bridge 1
| A7 | A7 |
I know you’re no good for me,
| D7 | D7 |
but free of you, I’ll never be, no.
Verse 2
Each night as I sleep, into my heart you creep.
I wake up feeling sorry I met you, hoping soon, that I’ll forget you.
Breakdown 2
When I look in the mirror, to comb my hair.
I see your face just-a-smilin’ there.
Chorus 3
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, from you, baby.
I got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
Bridge 2
I know you’re no good for me.
But you’ve become a part of me.
Verse 3
How can I fight a love, that shouldn’t be?
When it’s so deep, so deep, deep inside of me.
Breakdown 3
My love reaches so high, I can’t get over it.
It’s so wide, I can’t get around it, no.
Chorus 4
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, from you babe.
Just can’t get away from you baby, no matter how I try.
Bridge 3
I know you’re no good for me.
But free of you, I’ll never be.
Chorus 5
Nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide (Nowhere to hide).
Got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide (Nowhere to hide).
Got nowhere to run. Got nowhere to hide (Nowhere to hide). (fade)
Nowhere To Run Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning Nowhere To Run. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, strings, 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 original recording instead, 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?
This is an important chord progression to understand. We’re in the key of G, but most traditional rules are broken, which is what gives this progression its distinctive sound.
First, the I chord doesn’t feel settled because Nowhere To Run has a bluesy character. If we were strictly following the major scale, the G chord would be a maj7, but here it leans towards a dom7 feel — even though we never actually play a G7.
The reason it feels like a dom7 comes from the next chord: F. This acts as a bVIIx, the quintessential rock ’n’ roll chord, famously used by bands like AC/DC.
After the F, we move to C, the IV chord, which is one of the few chords in the key of G that hasn’t been altered. Here’s the verse and chorus progression:
||: G (I) | F (bVIIx) C (IV) :||
The sharp-eyed theory student may look at this and say: “That looks like a progression from the key of C!” And they would be right — but also wrong, because the song unquestionably feels like the key of G.
Sometimes the placement of chords within the bar is more important than the chords themselves. Nowhere To Run is the perfect example of why you must always put music first and theory second.
Dig a little deeper, and we find that before the C chord we pass through Em, and the C also has an E in the bass. The actual progression is therefore:
||: G | F Em C/E :||
This is true if we follow the piano and horn parts. If we’re only playing chord stabs on beats 2 and 4, we as guitarists could simply think of it as G – F – C.
To fully understand this, you need TAB — keep scrolling down this guitar lesson to find it.
Bridge
The bridge introduces A7 and D7. A7 functions as the IIx chord, and D7 is the V chord with its natural b7 extension.
Over these blues and rock ’n’ roll-inspired chords, the melody blends both the G minor and major pentatonic scales, using classic blues language and further proving that Nowhere To Run sits firmly in the key of G, not C.
Here’s a chord chart to guide your playing.
Nowhere To Run Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
Download my chart as a static PDF or in the flexible iReal Pro format where you can change the key and layout of the arrangement.
Nowhere To Run | TAB
Let’s look at how to play the guitar for this tune. We get there by studying the horns and keys first.
Horns
Here’s the horn riff adapted for guitar. Notice how there are stabs on beats 2 and 4!
Piano
Adapting the keys part for guitar could look like this:
I’ve incorporated hits on 2 and 4 in the first bar so if you play this without a keys player, you’re still covering the guitar stabs.
Here’s another position using the same concept — you could go between these to create movement.
Guitar
If you have both keys and horns, you could play this on the guitar (notice the missing Em chord now — we hit the stab between the C/E and G in bars one and two). To join in with the other players, I’ve changed bar 4.
Here’s another area:
Here’s idea 3 — simply a new area of the fretboard:
Bridge
The bridge is more straightforward — play this no matter how big the band is:
Or, add some expression:
Ideally, move that bridge part to other areas as well before returning to the backing tracks, playing the tune with the Funk Brothers using only the chord chart.
Nowhere To Run Chords: Continue Learning
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