Take Me To The River | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| E E7 | E7 | E E6 E7 | E E7 E6 E |
| E | E7 | E7 | E7 |
| E Aadd9/E E7 | E E7 Aadd9/E | E | E7 |
I’d like to dedicate this song to little Jr Park,
a cousin of mine that has gone on and we’d like to kind of carry on in his name, by saying:
Verse 1
| E7 | E7 D5 A5 |
I don’t know why I love you like I do,
| E7 | E7 D5 A5 |
after all these changes that you put me through.
| E7 | E7 D5 A5 |
You stole my money and my cigarettes,
| E7 | E7 D5 A5 G |
and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you yet.
Bridge 1
| C Csus4 C Csus2 | G Gsus4 G | D5 | A A6 A7 A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
I wanna know, won’t you tell me, am I in love to stay?
Chorus 1
| E7 E6 E7 | E7 E6 |
Take me to the river, and wash me down.
| E7 E6 E | E7 E6 | E7 E6 E | E7 |
Won’t you cleanse my soul, put my feet on the ground.
Verse 2
||: E7 | E7 D5 A5 G5 :||
I don’t know why she treated me so bad,
Look at all those things that we could have had.
Love is a notion that I can’t forget,
my sweet sixteen I will never regret.
Bridge 2
| C | G C/G G6 G5 | D5 Dsus4 D5 | A A6 A A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
I wanna know, won’t you tell me, am I in love to stay?
Instrumental
||: E7 E6 E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 :||
Middle 8
| C#m | Aadd9 | C#m | Asus2 |
Hold me, love me, please me, tease me,
| G5 | B7 | B7 B7/F# | B7 B7/F# |
till I can’t, till I can’t, take no more.
Chorus 2
||: E7 E6 E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 :||
Take me to the river.
Verse 3
||: E7 | E7 D5 A5 G5 :||
I don’t know why I love you like I do,
after all the things that you put me through.
The sixteen candles burning on my wall,
turning me into the biggest fool of them all.
Bridge 3
| C | G G6 G5 | D5 | A A6 A A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
I wanna know, won’t you tell me, am I in love to stay?
Outro
||: E7 E6 E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 :||
I wanna know, take me to the river.
I wanna know, I want you to dip me in the water.
I wanna know, won’t you wash me in the water.
Wash me in the water, wash me in the water.
Won’t you wash me in the water, feeling good.
You can learn how to play Take Me To The River!
Al Green‘s awesome Take Me To The River was a big hit back in 1974 when first released. Since then it has become somewhat of a standard, covered by working bands but also by other artists.
Let’s look at all the chords in order to get our heads around how it was put together harmonically.
The intro chords use all kinds of extensions in order to capture what the strings did on the original recording.
| E E7 | E7 | E E6 E7 | E E7 E6 E |
| E | E7 | E7 | E7 |
| E Aadd9/E E7 | E E7 Aadd9/E | E | E7 |
Verse 1’s chord progression looks like this.
||: E7 | E7 D5 A5 :||
Other songs that use these chords are Back In Black, Parklife, and Get Back by the Beatles. Once you experienced the sound of the I (E) – bVIIx (D) – IV (A) progression, you’ll instantly recognize it.
The bridge section uses b and x chords to wander outside the key. Using Roman numerals, they spell bVIx – bIIIx, before we play the now-established bVIIx (D) – IV (A) again.
| C Csus4 C Csus2 | G Gsus4 G | D5 |
| A A6 A7 A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
This is a movement of 5th’s, as a cycle of 4th movement but backward, another song that employs this is Wonderwall by Oasis.
The chorus is similar to the verse, although we don’t include the D and A.
Instead, we vary the E7 with an E6, like this:
| E7 E6 E7 | E7 E6 |
| E7 E6 E | E7 E6 | E7 E6 E | E7 |
Verse 2 adds a G before we return to the E throughout. This G could also be seen as an Em, it’s so quick as it appears on the 4 & beat.
||: E7 | E7 D5 A5 G5 :||
Bridge 2 has some variations in the chords.
| C | G C/G G6 G5 | D5 Dsus4 D5 |
| A A6 A A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
The next chorus is the same as before. The m8 section first finds E major’s VI chord, a C#m, as it moves:
| C#m | Aadd9 | C#m | Asus2 |
| G5 | B7 | B7 | B7 |
This is the harmonic release the tension of previous sections craved, genius!
The m8 is followed by a chorus and verse using the same chords as before. Only the bridge is once again updated with more variations to its chords.
| C | G G6 G5 | D5 |
| A A6 A A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
Finally, the outro chorus and end are largely the same as before, find variation by changing the shapes of the E, E6, and E7 chords.
Here’s a simple chart showing you all of Take Me To The River’s chords.
In the next part of this lesson series, we look at some transcriptions of the horns and string lines. This will help us build the arrangement.
As Take Me To The River is a pretty complex song to play on just one acoustic guitar, it takes seven lessons before we can play the full arrangement.
Take Me To The River’s 8 guitar lessons
Take Me To The River is complex to grasp since what we attempt here is to replicate an entire soul band on just one acoustic guitar.
To get there we simply break all of it down into smaller chunks and practice along with individual loops.
In total, there are 8 step-by-step lessons for Take Me To The River available. Here are links to each lesson in the course (members only):
- Step 1 – Chord progression
- Step 2 – Verse
- Step 3 – Bridge
- Step 4 – Chorus
- Step 5 – Intro, M8 & Outro
- Step 6 – 1st half of the song
- Step 7 – 2nd half of the song
- Step 8 – The complete song on one acoustic guitar
Take Me To The River chords | Related pages
Five similar tunes
- Born Under A Bad Sign chords
- Get Ready chords
- Hard To Handle chords
- Hold On, I’m Comin’ chords
- In the Midnight Hour chords
Al Green
Al Green is an American gospel and soul singer who has enjoyed great popularity since the early 70s.
Among his hits, you’ll find Let’s Stay Together and Take Me To The River as well as covers of A Change Is Gonna Come, Unchained Melody, Light My Fire, and My Girl.
Al Green on the web
Advanced Acoustic Songs
These songs use big chord extensions and sometimes, unique and complex chords that incorporate open strings.
Study these in-depth and you will gain a complete understanding of the guitar fretboard, including how to build any scale, arpeggio, or chord.
