Acoustic Songs, Intermediate Acoustic, Song Book

Red chords

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Red | Chords + Lyrics

Intro (0:00)

| E | E Eadd9 |

Verse 1 (0:10)

Bridge 1 (0:35)

Chorus 1 (1:00)

| 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 (1:31)

| 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 (1:56)

Chorus 2 (2:20)

| 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 (3:03)

Instrumental (3:27)

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

Chorus 3 (3:39)

| 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 (4:04)

| 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.

You can learn how to play Red!

In the key of E, Red only uses four chords. The I, IV, V, and VI chords. It’s not the chord progression that makes the song sound different. Instead, it achieves its interesting sounds through chord extensions and an elaborate melody.

Below, there’s a guitar lesson detailing how to play the bridge, including chords, extensions, strumming, and TAB. Before we get to that, let’s look at the general chord progression for the full song.

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

| 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.

This is evident in the m8, below there’s a guitar lesson from the course describing this in more detail, enjoy!

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Red guitar lesson | Bridge and middle 8 chords

In this second step, we move on and look at the bridge. As the M8 section uses the same chords, we also look at how this is played in the one acoustic guitar version.

There are two TAB loops for the verse and one for the M8.

Notice how the rhythm first has moved one beat down the bar. This is a good trick to make something feel fresh, while still keeping an element of repetitiveness.

Red chords and strumming bridge TAB, example 1. — Red bridge TAB – example 1

Following the first bar, we move back to the initial rhythm for the first half of each bar. In keeping with the rest of the arrangement, the second half of every bar is constantly changing.

In bridge 2, there is more strumming.

Red chords and strumming bridge TAB, example 2. — Red bridge TAB – example 2

The final bar has some difficult rhythms to read. To get it right, first say it, then play it.

Spend enough time on both of these examples so you can play them with ease.

When you feel comfortable, try the M8 as well.

Red chords and strumming m8 TAB. — Red m8 TAB

In the course, we next work on the chorus. After all sections of Red have been looped and practiced individually, we play the complete song in step 4.

Following this, we go through how the modes work in steps 5-7 before we play the vocal melody of Red which uses, for example, Lydian.

For the complete experience, sign up here.

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, John Legend, and Mary J Blidge 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 chords | Related pages

Red – 8 guitar lessons

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.

Red – 8 guitar lessons.

Intermediate Acoustic Songs

The intermediate songs can not 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, licks, extend chords, and even play vocal melodies. Most importantly, we invent 2nd guitar parts and play these songs together.

Intermediate Acoustic Songs.

Red – 5 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 his 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 tunes.

Daniel Merriweather on the web

Listen to Daniel Merriweather on Spotify.

Mark Ronson

Mark’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 tunes.

Mark Ronson on the web