The Drugs Don’t Work | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| C Csus2 | C Csus2 | Am Asus2 | Am Asus2 |
| Em | Fadd9 G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Verse 1
| C Csus2 | C G/B | Am Asus2 | Am Asus2 |
All this talk of getting old, it’s getting me down my love.
| Em | F/C G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown, this time I’m comin’ down.
Verse 2
| C Csus2 | C Csus2 | Am Asus2 | Am Asus2 |
And I hope you’re thinking of me, as you lay down on your side.
| Em | Fadd9 G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Now the drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, but I know I’ll see your face again.
Chorus 1
| Em | Fsus2 G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Now the drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, but I know I’ll see your face again.
Verse 3
| C Csus2 | C G/B | Am Asus2 | Am Asus2 |
But I know I’m on a losing streak, ’cause I passed down my old street.
| Em | F/C G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
And if you wanna show, then just let me know, and I’ll sing in your ear again.
Chorus 2
| Em | Fsus2 G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Now the drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, but I know I’ll see your face again.
Bridge 1
| F | Em | Am | G |
Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I’m coming too.
| F/C | Em | Am | G |
Just like you said, you leave my life, I’m better off dead.
Verse 4
| C Csus2 | C G/B | Am Asus2 | Am Asus2 |
All this talk of getting old, it’s getting me down my love.
| Em | F/C G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown, this time I’m comin’ down.
Chorus 3
| Em | Fsus2 G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
Now the drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, but I know I’ll see your face again.
Bridge 2
| F | Em | Am | G |
‘Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I’m coming, too.
| F/C | Em | Am | G |
Just like you said, you leave my life, I’m better off dead.
Chorus 4
| Em | F/C G | C Csus2 | C Csus2 |
But if you wanna show, just let me know, and I’ll sing in your ear again.
| Em | F/C G | C Csus2 | C |
Now the drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, but I know I’ll see your face again.
Outro
||: C Csus2 :||
||: Yeah, I know I’ll see your face again :||
||: C Csus2 :||
||: Yeah, I know I’ll see your face again, oh Lord :||
||: C Csus2 :||
||: I’m never going down, I’m never coming down, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more :||
The Drugs Don’t Work Guitar Lesson | Course Preview
Using almost only open-position chords, staying in one key with no variations, Richard Ashcroft has managed to write a song that sounds unique.
Don’t be fooled, to write a song having mainly simple open-position chords doesn’t mean it’s easy!
If you are a beginner, The Drugs Don’t Work’s chords only have one difficult chord to fret, the mighty F.
You don’t have to play this as a big and painful barre chord, instead, it’s about finding a way to play that F and look beyond the seemingly impossible shape.
Most of the time, we get there by not fretting and playing all the strings. For example, an F/C will work well enough as a substitute for the big and clunky F.
The chords from The Drugs Don’t Work are all from the key of C, no variations are used.
In order to understand the song, we should always look at the chord progressions as Roman numerals. Here’s the intro, verse, and chorus chords, in the key of C.
| I | I | VI | VI | III | IV V | I | I |
or
| C | C | Am | Am | Em | F G | C | C |
Strum through Drugs Don’t Work’s chords above using the chords and lyrics as well as the video of me and the singer, or the original if you prefer! Aim to hear and name each chord as a number.
Don’t worry about the strumming pattern, just focus on hearing each chord as a Roman numeral.
The Drugs Don’t Work is not about illegal drugs!
The Drugs Don’t Work has had a massive reach globally. Partly helped by Ben Harper who covered it on his Live From Mars album, but mainly as a single from The Verve’s best-seller Urban Hymns.
As the title indicates, most of us would have thought this was an anti-drug song, which it is, but not in the way we may have all been led to believe.
Originally having the meaning that the drugs didn’t work for Richard Ashcroft’s father, who was dying of cancer, the song had its wording slightly tweaked in order to give off a more ambiguous statement.
Being one of three massive hits (including Bitter Sweet Symphony and Lucky Man) from the album Urban Hymns in 1997, The Verve crossed over from, a critically acclaimed but relatively unknown indie/rock band, to mass-market fame in 1998.
Interestingly enough, the band had actually split up prior to the making of Urban Hymns which was their third record.
Luckily, Ashcroft managed to recruit an old friend in Simon Tong and eventually lure guitarist Nick McCabe back into the studio and get the album finished.
The Drugs Don’t Work’s 8 guitar lessons in the course
Playing the main part just like Richard did is not easy, there is so much variation in the strumming. To get it right, we must first work on our ability to read rhythms.
Following this, we study each section in depth using play-along loops before we attempt the complete song. Finally, we learn the beautiful 2nd guitar as well.
In total, there are 8 step-by-step lessons for The Drugs Don’t Work available. Here are links to each lesson in the course (members only):
- Step 1 – Chord progression
- Step 2 – Reading rhythms
- Step 3 – Verse
- Step 4 – Chorus & Bridge
- Step 5 – The complete song
- Step 6 – 2nd guitar, a picked parts
- Step 7 – 2nd guitar strummed parts
- Step 8 – 2nd guitar – The complete song
Become a member today and get unlimited access to all my guitar courses, the SEPR practice route, and the eBook Spytunes Method – You can learn guitar!
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