Intermediate Acoustic, Pop & Rock, Song Book

Red chords by Daniel Merriweather

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Red | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

| E | E Eadd9 |

Verse 1

Bridge 1

Chorus 1

| E | E | C#m | A |
And I can’t do this by myself, all of these problems, they’re all in your head.
| E | E | C#m | A (A6) | E Eadd9 | E Eadd9 |
And I can’t be somebody else, you took something perfect and painted it red.

Verse 2

| A | A | E | E Eadd9 |
No sympathy, when shouting out is all you know.
| A | A | E Eadd9 | E |
Behind your lies, I can see the secrets you don’t show.

Bridge 2

Chorus 2

| E | E Eadd9 E7 | C#m | A |
I can’t do this by myself, all of these problems, they’re all in your head.
| E | E Eadd9 E7 | C#m | A | E Eadd9 | E Eadd9 |
And I can’t be somebody else, you took something perfect and painted it red, oh,
| C#m | A | E Eadd9 | E Eadd9 |
you took something perfect and painted it red.

Middle 8

Instrumental

| E | E Eadd9 E7 | C#m | A |

Chorus 3

| E | E | C#m | Asus2 |
And I can’t do this by myself, all of these problems, they’re all in your head.
| E | E Eadd9 E7 | C#m | A | E | E Eadd9 E7 |
And I can’t be somebody else, you took something perfect and painted it red. Red.

Outro

| C#m | A | E | E Eadd9 E7 |
Red, you took something perfect and you painted it red.
| C#m | A | E | E Eadd9 E7 | C#madd9 | A | E |
You took something perfect and painted it red, you took something perfect and painted it red.

Red Guitar Lesson | Course Preview

In the key of E, Red only uses four chords. The I, IV, V, and VI chords. That’s E, A, B, and C#m.

To compensate for the lack of massive production, on just one acoustic guitar, I’ve incorporated open strings as drones.

Starting off with the intro/instrumental section, which is harmonically super simple, we just stay on chord I. only adding an add9 extension.

| E | Eadd9 |

The verse only adds the IV chord. Spiced up with a couple of extensions, it looks like this.

||: Asus2 | Asus2 | E Eadd9 | E :||

The bridge takes the song to chord VI for the first time, like this.

||: C#m | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 :||

The chorus is very similar to the verse, just swapped around, with a VI chord as well.

||: E | E | C#m | A :|| E Eadd9 | E Eadd9 |

The m8 recycles the chords of the bridge, now with add9 and add4, not sus2 extensions.

What’s really unique about this one guitar arrangement is how some of the chords have been extended. Using the same open strings throughout, we get different extensions depending on which chord is used.

For example, the C#m with an open B and E string produces a C#m7, but over an A chord, you get an add9 extension.

Red – The hit that never was

Red was the second single from Australian Daniel Merriweather’s second album Love & War, produced by Mark Ronson.

Previous to Love & War, Merriweather recorded an album in 2006 entitled The Fifth Season. However, this first album was never released.

After an initial single release of Change in February 2009, Merriweather released Red in May and entered the UK chart at #5 where it remained for a month.

It achieved good circulation on U.K. radio stations and was even predicted to become the song of the year by many, including myself.

The video for Red was shot in Brooklyn and directed by Anthony Mandler, a well-known video director with videos by Rhianna, Jay-Z, The Killers, and John Legend behind him.

The video consisted of a dramatic feast of shadows and angles shot with a handheld camera.

Both the video and the song production were in the same style as those of other artists and bands released during 2009 such as The Script, who incidentally is on the same label as Merriweather.

My version of Red is much slower than the original, it didn’t become as big of a success as the original had anticipated either!

Red’s 8 guitar lessons in the course

The relatively unknown Red by Daniel Merriweather and famed producer Mark Ronson have some fantastic vocal melody secrets to teach us more about music.

To fully understand this song, we have to actually learn about the modes and play the vocal melody.

In total, there are 8 step-by-step lessons for Red available. Here are links to each lesson in the course (members only):

Become a member today and get unlimited access to all my guitar courses, the SEPR practice route, and the eBook Spytunes Method – You can learn guitar!

Red chords | Related pages

Intermediate Acoustic

Most intermediate acoustic tunes can’t be played using just basic open-position chords. We have to move up the fretboard and play CAGED barre chords as well.

We incorporate bass lines, add licks, extend chords, and play vocal melodies. Most importantly, we invent second guitar parts and play these songs together.

Five similar tunes

When you can play Red's chords, try these five tunes from the song book.

Daniel Merriweather

Australian Daniel Merriweather first started working with Mark Ronson in ’03, appearing on Here Comes The Fuzz.

After a few more collaborations with Ronson, they finally made a solo album for Merriweather that was released in ’09.

Daniel Merriweather on the web

Listen to Daniel Merriweather on Spotify.

Mark Ronson

Mark Ronson‘s destiny seemed written in the stars as his stepdad was the guitarist of the well-known rock band Foreigner.

After a few solo album attempts, as well as working as a DJ, Mark found his calling in producing some of his time’s greatest artists.

Mark Ronson on the web

Pop & Rock

Whenever a tune doesn’t fit into a specific genre, it tends to end up here, in the Pop & Rock section.

Learn tunes from Tom Petty, Eagles, Toto, Oasis, Elvis, Clapton, John Mayer, Kings Of Leon, R.E.M., Radiohead, Bruno Mars, and more.