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.
After all these changes that you put me through.
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) | G (Gsus4) | D5 (Dsus4) | 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
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 (verse 2)
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
I wanna know, won’t you tell me, am I in love to stay?
Outro (as chorus)
||: 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.
Take Me To The River Chords: Learn the progressions
Let’s look at the chords for the first three sections of Take Me To The River, it is complex if you’re going to include the strings and horn lines as I do in the one acoustic arrangement.
I’ve included all movements above with chords and lyrics, but in the chart below, I kept it much simpler.
Should you play it with a band, you could pick a few of these ideas. Maybe focus on the intro and chorus licks I transcribed from the original recording.
The intro chords use all kinds of extensions to capture what the strings did on the original recording.
You’ll need TAB to make sense of all this, once you got that, you can just read the chords like this:
| E E7 | E7 | E E6 E7 | E E7 E6 E |
| E | E7 | E7 | E7 |
| E Aadd9/E E7 | E E7 Aadd9/E | E | E7 |
Once verse 1’s chords start, we keep it more simple. The chord progression used here is I – bVIIx – IV.
The I chord is a dom7 so blues, not the major scale! The bVIIx chord (D) could also be called a backdoor dominant.
Here are Take Me To The River’s verse chords.
||: E7 (I) | E7 D5 (bVIIx) A5 (IV) :||
Other songs that use these chords are Back In Black (AC/DC), Parklife by Blur, and Get Back by the Beatles. Once you have experienced the sound of the I (E) – bVIIx (D) – IV (A) progression, you’ll instantly recognize it.
Members look at several ways to play this verse using play–along loops and TAB.
The bridge section uses b and x chords to wander outside the key. As Roman Numerals, they spell bVIx (C) – bIIIx (G), before we play the now-established bVIIx (D) – IV (A) again.
| C Csus4 C Csus2 | G Gsus4 G | D5 (Dsus4) |
| A A6 A7 A6 | A A6 A7 A6 | 2/4 A7 |
We could also describe this movement as a modal interchange from E (chord I) to Em (chord VI) which makes C chord IV and G chord I.
The whole progression is a movement of the 5ths, 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 in chorus 1:
| E7 E6 E7 | E7 E6 |
| E7 E6 E | E7 E6 | E7 E6 E | E7 |
The following choruses are simpler and over 8 bars, not 6, like this:
||: E7 E6 E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 :||
The amazing middle 8 section finally embraces the key of E Ionian (not E blues) as it moves like this:
| C#m (VI) | Aadd9 (IV) | C#m | Asus2 |
| G5 (bIIIx) | B7 (V) | B7 B7/F# | B7 B7/F# |
To fit all this in a chord chart proved impossible on one page, having space and being simple to read. Here’s what I came up with after much deliberation.
Take Me To The River Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
I simplified many things in this chord chart. The intro doesn’t show any of those string and horn lines as chord extensions. I’ve also used this part to describe the instrumental and outro, it’s an E7 and occasional E6.
What I’m saying is, you need to go deep here and memorise it. I’ve indicated how many bars for each time, 12, 8 and then to fade.
The verse has been simplified too, instead of showing the various chords you hear in verse 1, I just put it down as we play in the following verses.
The bridge is always the same.
The chorus has also been watered down in the chord chart. The first time it’s 6 bars, the next 12. I’ve indicated this using text in the chart.
My favourite section of all time, Take Me To The River’s middle 8 has been kept intact.
At the bottom of the chart, I put the order of these sections.
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Take Me To The River Chord Chart PDF.
This chart was created using iRealPro, here’s a link to that file: Take Me To The River iReal Pro.
Below you get the opposite of this simplification; TAB with a play–along loop.
Take Me To The River TAB | Course Preview
My one guitar acoustic arrangement of Take Me To The River is very complex, I worked on this for many, many days, transcribing bass, strings and horn parts.
it was well worth the effort, I would encourage you to do the same to your favourite tunes, instead of learning just the guitar, find out what the other instruments are doing!
Here’s the TAB for what you find above as a play–along video loop, example 1 of how this verse could be played. I’m mainly focusing on combining chords with the bass line in this example
Members get lots of TAB and play–along loops like this for all sections, as well as in-depth video guitar lessons walking you through the entire arrangement.
There is so much to learn from this Al Green classic it is truly mindblowing.
Here’s a link to the 8 step-by-step guitar lessons: Take Me To The River – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
David Byrne helped Al Green make Take Me To The River a hit!
Al Green‘s awesome Take Me To The River wasn’t a hit back in 1974 when it was first released on the album Al Green Explores Your Mind. Its legendary status has come over the years, following a famous cover (more on this later).
The horn section used on the original recording was the Memphis Horns, regularly hired by Stax and therefore pals with Booker T. and the M.G.’s.
Also featured on the recording is the Memphis Strings, which together with the band playing gently or “humming” created a “late-night sound” that has been described as Southern Soul.
Released on Hi Records, they were aiming to compete with what Chess, Motown, and Stax had been doing successfully for over a decade; making black music for white radio.
It was a generally accepted idea that to achieve this, they needed to add strings, horns, and often BVs to the raw sound of the blues or as in Al Green’s case, Gospel.
Since its release in 1974, Take Me To The River has become somewhat of a standard, covered by working bands but also by other artists.
Most famously, Talking Heads (David Byrne) released a version in 1978. This version did reasonably well in the charts as a single, reaching #26 in the U.S.
David later commented: “Coincidence or conspiracy? There were at least four cover versions of this song out at the same time: Foghat, Bryan Ferry, Levon Helm (The Band), and us. More money for Mr Green’s full gospel tabernacle church, I suppose.”
Take Me To The River Chords | Related Pages
Take Me To The River | 8 Step-by-step Guitar Lessons + TAB
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 each part as an individual loop.
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Born Under A Bad Sign chords by Albert King
- Get Ready chords by Sam & Dave
- Hard To Handle chords by Otis Reddin and The Black Crowes
- Hold On, I’m Comin’ chords by Sam & Dave
- In the Midnight Hour chords by Otis Redding
Al Green tunes
Al Green is an American gospel and soul singer who has enjoyed great popularity since the early 70s.
Best tunes include Let’s Stay Together and Take Me To The River and covers of A Change Is Gonna Come, Unchained Melody, Light My Fire, and My Girl.
Al Green on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Take Me To The River chords, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
