Rosanna chords

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Rosanna | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

| N.C | N.C | drums
||: G5 (octave) :|| x4

Verse 1

Pre-chorus 1

| Gm | F/A Bb | Eb5 Bb F/A |
Not quite a year since you went away. Rosanna, yeah.
| Gm | F/A Bb Eb5 | Bb5 F5 | 2/4 F5 | 4/4
Now she’s gone, and I have to say.

Chorus 1

||: Bb Eb5 | Eb5 Bb F/A Bb :||
Meet you all the way.
Meet you all the way. Rosanna, yeah.
Meet you all the way.
| Bb Eb5 | Eb5 Bb5 F5 |2/4 F5 | 4/4
Meet you all the way. Rosanna, yeah.

Verse 2

Pre-chorus 2

| Gm | F/A Bb | Eb5 Bb F/A |
Not quite a year since you went away. Rosanna, yeah.
| Gm | F/A Bb Eb5 | Bb5 F5 | 2/4 F5 | 4/4
Now she’s gone, and I have to say.

Chorus 2

Solo

Pre-chorus 3

| Gm | F/A Bb | Eb5 Bb F/A |
Not quite a year since you went away. (Who is it?) Rosanna, yeah.
| Gm | F/A Bb Eb5 | Bb5 F5 | 2/4 F5 | 4/4
Now she’s gone, and I have to say.

Chorus 3

||: Bb Eb5 | Eb5 Bb F/A Bb :||
Meet you all the way, yeah, yeah, girl.
Meet you all the way. Rosanna, yeah.
Meet you all the way ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah.
| Bb Eb5 | Eb5 Bb5 F5 |2/4 F5 | 4/4
Meet you all the way. Rosanna, yeah.

Chorus 4

Outro

||: G5 (C/G) | G5 (C/G) :||

Rosanna’s chords, progressions, and TAB

Mainly known for the hi-hat style of Jeff Porcarro‘s legendary drumming, Rosanna is not just every drummer’s favorite tune, chord enthusiasts like you and me get to enjoy some extremely clever slash chords too!

If you’ve done an internet search for Rosanna chords, you probably found some different results to what you see above, Am instead of the F/A for example.

The absolute truth is that neither of those is actually correct. It should really be an F/C, because the bass player plays a C. However, this is confusing for us as guitar players as we play what looks like an F/A on just two strings.

Furthermore, the Bb should really be a Bb/D, again, on the guitar, it’s just two strings.

After pulling my hair out for a while I decided to try and make this as simple as possible. It’s easy to go too far when it comes to music this complex, so, TAB is to the rescue! Let’s start with the verse.

I’ve written G5 in the chords and lyrics above. This is not really correct as it’s an octave, no 3rd, but no 5th either. Gomit3 means no 3rd, which also doesn’t say to avoid the 5th. So both are kind of wrong.

At least Fsus2 – Em7 is simple! After the F5, we play octaves again, just a tone down.

After the Eb5 there’s a Dm7, then the same muted idea. On the record, I think the guitar doesn’t actually play that Dm7 first, only keyboards do, but it’s nice so I put it in.

Let’s check the pre-chorus next, here’s the TAB.

As you can see, it’s easy to think that F/A is an Am, but it’s not. On the second line, I’ve just written F, even though it’s still F/A.

Should you include what the keyboards play, and the bass, all chords for Rosanna’s pre-chorus are actually this:

| Gm/Bb | F/C Bb/D | Eb Bb/D F/C |
| Gm | F/C Bb/D Eb5 | Bb5 F5 |2/4 F5 |

If you want to turn this into an acoustic guitar arrangement, what you just saw is useful. In a band setting, it’s just confusing!

That final horn lick is played on the guitar live by Steve Lukather so let’s learn that! It’s just a Dm blues scale.

Finally, here’s the chorus. Should I have called the F and F/A? I guess it depends on who you ask, if you ask the bass player, he’ll tell you it’s a C!

Rosanna chords | Related pages

Rosanna – 5 similar tunes

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

Toto

Formed in 1977 by session musicians in L.A. Toto released their own albums as well as became Michael Jackson’s backing band.

Under their own name, they had great success with Hold The Line, Rosanna, Africa, Stop Loving You, and Georgy Porgy.

Toto tunes.

Toto on the web