Chords + Lyrics | River Deep – Mountain High
Intro
| N.C (F) | 3/4 Bb (intro riff) | 4/4 Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) |
Verse 1
| Bb N.C | N.C | Eb | Eb | Eb | Eb | Bb | Bb |
When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll, only doll I’ve ever owned.
| Bb | Bb | Eb | Eb | Eb | Eb | Bb | Bb |
Now I love you just the way I loved that rag doll. But only now my love has grown.
Bridge 1
||: F | F | Bb | Bb :|| x3
And it gets stronger, in every way.
And it gets deeper, let me say.
And it gets higher, day by day.
Chorus 1
| Ab | Ab | Ab (Ab G Ab) | Ab (Bb Ab G Ab) |
And do I love you, my oh my.
| Bb | Bb | Bb (Bb A Bb) | Bb (C Bb A Bb) |
Yeah, river deep, mountain high, yeah, yeah, yeah.
| Ab | Ab | Ab (Ab G Ab) | Ab (Bb Ab G Ab) |
If I lost you would I cry.
| Bb | Bb | Bb | 6/4 Bb (F) |
Oh how I love you baby. Baby, baby, baby.
Instrumental 1 (as intro)
| 3/4 riff | 4/4 Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) |
Verse 2
When you were a young boy did you have a puppy, that always followed you around?
Well, I’m gonna be as faithful as that puppy. No, I’ll never let you down.
Bridge 2
‘Cause it grows stronger, like a river flows.
And it gets bigger baby, and heaven knows.
And it gets sweeter baby, as it grows.
Chorus 2
And do I love you, my oh my.
Yeah, river deep, mountain high, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And if I lost you would I cry.
| Bb | Bb | Bb | Bb | 6/4 Bb (F Ab A) |
Oh how I love you baby. Baby, baby, baby.
Middle 8 (new riff)
||: Bb (m8 riff) | Bb (m8 riff) :|| x6
I love you baby like a flower loves the spring.
And I love you baby like a Robin loves to sing.
||: Eb (m8 riff) | Eb (m8 riff) :||
And I love you baby like a school boy loves his pet.
| Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) | Bb N.C (Bb F Ab) | Bb (F Ab A) |
And I love you baby, river deep, mountain high.
||: Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) :|| x6
Oh baby, hey yeah, baby, oh, baby, yeah, hey, yeah.
Chorus 3
Do I love you my oh my, oh my.
Yeah river deep, mountain high, yeah, yeah, yeah.
If I lost you would I cry.
Oh, how I love you baby. Baby, baby, baby.
Outro
| 3/4 Bb (intro riff) | 4/4 Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) | Bb N.C |
River Deep – Mountain High Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning River Deep – Mountain High. 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.
In the playlist, there is also a live version from 2009 which sounds much better when stem separated. It’s also in A rather than Bb, a much more guitar friendly key, but try convincing the horn section the band should switch…
Should you want to play along with the original recording instead, you need to tune your guitar sharp to 441Hz. In the backing tracks, I’ve done this job for you by tuning it to 440Hz.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
Tina Turner‘s epic River Deep – Mountain High is surprisingly not featured in too many working soul bands’ repertoires. I believe this is due to the arrangement’s varying time signatures, rather than any unusual chords.
I’ve played in many bands that attempted this tune without rehearsal or with a last-minute band member, and it often ended in disaster.
However, if you have a steady band lineup, this can be turned into an advantage. All you need to do is get the time signatures right, and you have an awesome tune—possibly even the highlight of the night! The problems start already in the intro…
Intro/instrumental/outro
For a guitarist, this is best thought of as a Bb minor pentatonic riff and read using TAB. You get all this further down this guitar lesson, let’s try first to understand it using chords:
| N.C F | 3/4 Bb (intro riff) | 4/4 Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) |
We’re coming in on the last 8th note of the first bar with the note F, the 5th of a Bb chord. We then play a 3/4 bar, followed by two 4/4 bars, then stop on beat one of the verse, rest for two bars and then start playing verse chords.
It’s imperative that the band count this in the same way. It could be described using different time signatures and have the same outcome, but it’s always better if everyone is on the same page. For example, some may feel the first two bars of the verse should be though of as the intro. Anyway…
Verse
Once the time signature issues are sorted for the intro, the verse chords of River Deep – Mountain High move between the IV and I chords in the key of Bb, like this:
| Bb (I) N.C | N.C | Eb (IV) | Eb |
| Eb | Eb | Bb | Bb |
| Bb | Bb | Eb | Eb |
| Eb | Eb | Bb | Bb |
Bridge
The bridge follows a simple V – I progression, like this:
||: F (V) | F | Bb (I) | Bb :|| x3
Chorus
After using the three most obvious chords (I, IV, and V), the chorus begins with the bVIIx, also known as the backdoor dominant. The notes in brackets are bass lines.
| Ab (bVIIx) | Ab | Ab (Ab G Ab) | Ab (Bb Ab G Ab) |
| Bb (I) | Bb | Bb (Bb A Bb) | Bb (C Bb A Bb) |
| Ab | Ab | Ab (Ab G Ab) | Ab (Bb Ab G Ab) |
| Bb | Bb | Bb |6/4 Bb (F) |
The final part of each chorus varies depending on where we go next.
Choruses 1 and 3 lead into the intro riff again, while chorus 2 goes to the middle 8 riff. Both versions end with a 6/4 bar—this is the spot where many bands fall apart!
| Ab | Ab | Ab (Ab G Ab) | Ab (Bb Ab G Ab) |
1.3 | Bb | Bb | Bb | 6/4 Bb (F) |
2. | Bb | Bb | Bb | Bb | 6/4 Bb (F Ab A) |
Middle 8/Breakdwon
This unbelievable cool section could be named a middle 8 as it only appear once, or perhaps a breakdown section.
What happens is that we move the riff (you need TAB!) from the I chord to the IV and then back again, like this:
||: Bb (m8 riff) | Bb (m8 riff) :|| x6
||: Eb (m8 riff) | Eb (m8 riff) :||
| Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) | Bb N.C (Bb F Ab) | Bb (F Ab A) |
||: Bb (riff) | Bb (riff) :|| x6
For a complete time signature analysis and TAB to guide you and your band, keep scrolling down to the TAB section of this guitar lesson.
Once you’ve learned this, a simple chord chart is all you’ll need as a reminder on the night – do share it!
River Deep – Mountain High Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: River Deep – Mountain High chord chart PDF.
This chart was created using iRealPro, here’s a link to that file: River Deep – Mountain High iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Speaking of changing key – that live version is in the key of A and during the chorus, we play other notes on the I chord. We descend an A major scale to get to bVIIx.
Here’s a PDF and iRealPro file for this:
- River Deep – Mountain High chord chart PDF Live version Key of A
- River Deep – Mountain High chord chart iReal Pro Live version Key of A
River Deep – Mountain High | TAB
The intro riff uses the Bb minor pentatonic and looks like this in TAB over one 3/4 and two 4/4 bars followed by a stop:
Middle 8
The middle 8 uses a Bb Conspirian scale for the Bb riff, then an Eb Conspirian for the Eb riff. Conspirian is a scale I named after finding people played it a lot. It is a minor blues scale with a maj7.
Here’s the full riff shown in TAB. notice how we come in on the 3+, not the 4+ as the intro riff!
The outro is just the intro riff repeated.
It’s not hard to get the chords right in River Deep – Mountain High—it’s the time signatures that trip most people up! To get ahead of the game, use my backing tracks to prepare, can you transpose all this to the key of A for the live version?
River Deep – Mountain High Chords: Continue Learning
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