Papa Ain’t Salty chords


Video blocked due to privacy settings

Change privacy settings


Papa Ain’t Salty | Chords + Lyrics


Intro

| G9 | G9 | G9 | G9 |
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
| D9 | C9 (F#m7b5 Em7b5) |
| G9 | G9 |

Verse 1

| G9 | G9 | G9 | G9 |
Come home little girl, your papa ain’t salty no more.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Come home little girl, your papa ain’t salty no more.
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
I need your love and I swear I miss you so.

Verse 2

| G9 | G9 | G9 | G9 |
I know I was wrong, and I know I’ve caused you pains.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
I know I was wrong, and I’ve caused you pains.
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
I’m sorry pretty baby, I won’t do that again.

Solo

| G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
| D9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |

| G9 (C#m7b5 Bm7b5) | G9 | G9 | G9 |
| C9 (F#m7b5 Em7b5) | C9 | G9 (C#m7b5 Bm7b5) | G9 |
| D9 (G#m7b5 F#m7b5) | C9 (F#m7b5 Em7b5) |
| G9 (C#m7b5 Bm7b5) | G9 |

Verse 3

| G9 | G9 | G9 | G9 |
Why or why pretty baby, why did you have to go.
| C9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
Why or why pretty baby, why did you have to go,
| D9 | N.C | N.C | Ab9 G9 |
Please come back home pretty mama, Papa ain’t salty no more.


Papa Ain’t Salty chords and progressions

Built around a standard 12-bar blues, Papa Ain’t Salty’s chords have been extended to 9.

By substituting each chord with a min7b5, starting on the 3rd, we get this lovely-sounding dom9 extension.

Furthermore, this is slid up a tone, hinting at a 6 extension, before the 9.

I have indicated this by putting the min7b5 chords in brackets. On the original recording, this is only implemented after the solo, you could put it in more often if you like, maybe even in other songs!


The electric guitar pioneer

Like so many Texans before him, T-Bone Walker moved to California to record and it was here that Mr. Walker first got his hands on one of the first electric guitars, a Gibson ES, the Electric Spanish.

Around 1939, T-Bone Walker made his mark in musical history by making the first blues recording with an electric guitar.

T-Bone could have stopped right there and still been a legend! Luckily, he didn’t and the most famous blues guitarist after him cites T-Bone as one of their main influences.

In the video lesson above, you can learn how to play Papa Ain’t Salty, one of T-Bone’s more famous tracks, and a great introduction to Mr. Walker’s legendary licks.

A personal favorite here is the Am-shaped m7b5 chords used as a substitute to create a dom9-sounding chord lick.


Papa Ain’t Salty chords | Related pages


Papa Ain’t Salty – 5 similar tunes

When you can play Papa Ain't Salty's chords, try these five tunes from the song book.

T-Bone Walker

Find out more about T-Bone Walker, the man who wrote Papa Ain't Salty's chords.

This is it, the root, the granddaddy, the first electric guitar soloist: Mr. T-Bone Walker.

It was as early as 1929 when T-bone started to record, but as he says: “I’ve been doing it for a long time before that came around”.

T-Bone Walker tunes.


T-bone Walker on the web

Listen to T-bone Walker on Spotify.

Share this page

Spytunes App

Google Play

Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.