Robin Hood | Chords + Lyrics
Intro (0:00)
| G5 |
Verse 1 (0:05)
| G5 D/F# | Em D5/A |
When you’re starting to choke take some pills with your coke,
| C | Dsus4 D |
it’s inspirational.
| G5 D/F# | Em D |
When your life is a mess light one more cigarette,
| C | Dsus4 D |
it’s so logical.
Chorus 1 (0:33)
| G5 D | C D |
Well, it’s something your mother can’t abide,
| G5 D | C D |
but it’s something that I freely prescribe.
Chorus tag 1 (0:46)
| G5 | D/F# | Em | A |
Take yourself for a ride, it never felt so good, as the night that you and I played Robin Hood.
| C | Dsus4 D |
Stealing from the backrooms of my mind,
| C | D | G5 D/F# | Em A | A |
remembering a time when we were five, a time I thought we’d left behind.
Verse 2 (1:23)
| G5 D/F# | Em D5 |
When you’re starting to cry, I’ll come and sit by your side,
| C | Dsus4 D |
I will love you so.
| G5 D/F# | Em D5 |
And when nightmares come, I will try to be fun, even though,
| C | Dsus4 D |
I’m so scared you know.
Chorus 2 (1:50)
| G5 D | C D |
‘Cause, it’s something your mother can’t abide,
| G5 D | C D |
but it’s something that I freely prescribe.
Chorus tag 2 (2:04)
| G5 | D/F# | Em | A |
Take yourself for a ride, it never felt so good, as the night that you and I played Robin Hood.
| C | Dsus4 D |
Stealing from the backrooms of our minds,
| C | D | G5 D/F# | Em A | A |
stealing from a time when we were five, a time I thought we’d left behind.
Chorus tag 3 (2:39)
| C | D |
Stealing from the backrooms of my mind,
| C | D | G5 D/F# | Em A | 2/4 A | 4/4 A |
stealing from a time when we were five, a time I thought we’d left behind.
Outro (3:04)
| G5 D/F# | Em D5 | C | Dsus4 D | G5 |
When you started to choke take some pills with your coke, it’s hysterical.
You can learn how to play Robin Hood!
Ocean Colour Scene‘s Robin Hood is a tune I’ve chosen to include in the beginner course for a few reasons.
Firstly, it’s got great chords and strumming patterns that a beginner can learn a lot from. But it’s also an interesting composition if you are interested in what makes a hit as Robin Hood is only a fan favorite, not a chart-topper.
As you can see above, a few chords have been manipulated, they’re not just open-position chords. First, the D/F# is a D chord with the 3rd of the chord (the F#) in the bass.
As the progression moves from G – D – Em, it makes sense to add the F# to the D as this creates a descending bass line of G – F# – E.
We also find a Dsus4. Sus4 means suspended 4th. To create this chord, replace the 3rd (an F#) with the 4th (a G).
One chord in the song is a variation, it’s the A chord (chord IIx) which should have been an Am (chord II). This A appears during the chorus tag.
The best way to learn how to play chords like this is through playing songs and developing parts for each section of a song.
Below you’ll find a guitar lesson from the course that does just this as we study five examples of how to play Robin Hood‘s verse.
Robin Hood guitar lesson | Verse chords, strumming, and TAB
Robin hood is a song that contains slash chords. We touched on this as you played Redemption Song with the G/B. Today we learn a D/F# and have the option to play it with our thumb, just like Jimi Hendrix would.
In Robin Hood we are in the key of G, here are all the chords from the key:
G (I) Am (II) Bm (III) C (IV) D (V) Em (VI) F#m7b5.
Instead of an F#m7b5, we play a D/F#. The verse progression looks like this:
G – D/F# – Em – D – C – Dsus4 D.
This is a descending movement of:
I – V/VII – VI – V – IV, before we go back up to Vsus4 V.
Here’s the TAB for example 1.
Here’s example 2‘s TAB. Now, we play a bass note instead of a strum on beats 1 and 3. The C chord is picked all the way.
Next up, example 3. This time, all notes are picked, rather than strummed.
Let’s move on to example 4, it’s almost the same.
Finally, example 5 is the end of the song, picked until the final chord.
This was step 2 of the Robin Hood series in my beginner acoustic course.
To learn the song and more importantly, from it, we have eight guitar lessons covering chromatic exercises, the remaining sections for this one acoustic guitar arrangement, as well as how to build a 2nd guitar part for Robin Hood.
The final two lessons, where we build a 2nd guitar part are the most important. If you can learn how to build guitar parts, you can play with other people and even start writing your own songs.
The key is to first understand the song in-depth, just like we’ve done above here with the verse. If you do this to all sections of a song, building a 2nd guitar part that goes with it, is possible.
In total, there are eight lessons in the course when we learn this song. For the complete experience, sign up here.
Robin Hood chords | Related pages
Robin Hood – 8 guitar lessons
When you learn how to play Robin Hood by Ocean Colour Scene you’ll also learn how to pick and strum with more accuracy as you practice along with loops.
We also practice more chromatic exercises and build a 2nd guitar part so we can play the song together with the singer, like a little band.
Robin Hood – 8 guitar lessons.
Beginner Acoustic Songs
This collection of songs will teach you how to arrange a song to play on your own, as well as how to create a supporting part.
Playing songs will help you with switching between open-position chords and give you the context you need in order to understand how music works theoretically.
Robin Hood – 5 similar tunes
- A Change Is Gonna Come chords
- Angie chords
- The Drugs Don’t Work chords
- Mad World chords
- Wish You Were Here chords
Ocean Colour Scene
Ocean Colour Scene (OCS) is an English rock band from Birmingham. The band had the most success with their 1996 album Moseley Shoals.
The album contained the band’s three biggest hits The Riverboat Song, The Day We Caught The Train, and You’ve Got It Bad.
Ocean Colour Scene on the web
