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The Drugs Don’t Work chords by The Verve

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The Drugs Don’t Work | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

Verse 1

Verse 2

Chorus 1

Verse 3

Chorus 2

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

Chorus 3

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’s chords and progressions

The Drugs Don't Work 8 step by step guitar lessons

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, writing 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.

In order to understand The Drugs Don’t Work’s chords, we must look at the chord progression using Roman numerals. Here are the intro, verse, and chorus chords in the key of C, with Roman numerals:

| C (I) | C | Am (VI) | Am | Em (III) | F (IV) G (V) | C (I) | C |

Aim to hear the movement of these chords and you’ll soon be able to recognize it in other songs.

Playing the main part just like Richard did is not easy, there is so much variation in the strumming. In the course, we actually learn it exactly like he played and get a very intense strumming exercise at the same time.

To achieve this, we must study each section in depth using play-along loops before we attempt the complete song.

Finally, we learn the beautiful 2nd guitar as well, just like the original. Learning this means that you, me, and the singer can play The Drugs Don’t Work together, like a trio.

Here’s a link to the complete lesson series (members only): The Drugs Don’t Work 8 step-by-step guitar lessons with TAB.

Become a member today and get unlimited access to all step-by-step guitar courses, TAB for the songbook, the Self-Eliminating Practice Routine, and the eBook Spytunes Method.

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 in 2001, but mainly as a single from The Verve’s best-seller Urban Hymns (1997).

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), 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.

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The Verve is a British rock band formed in 1989, in Wigan. Among their bigger hits, you’ll find Bitter Sweet Symphony and The Drugs Don’t Work.

Since their first debut album, A Storm In Heaven, critics have always favored The Verve as one of the best 90s British rock acts.

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