Time Of Your Life | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| G5 N.C | G5 N.C |
F*ck.
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :||
Verse 1
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :||
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
Bridge 1
||: Em D5 | C G5 :||
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why.
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
Chorus 1
| Em G5 | Em G5 |
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end, it’s right.
| Em D5 |
I hope you had the time of your life.
Instrumental 1
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :||
Verse 2
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Bridge 2
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial,
for what it’s worth it was worth all the while.
Chorus 2
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end, it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
Solo
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :|| x4
||: Em D5 | C G5 :||
Chorus 3
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end, it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
Instrumental 2
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :||
Chorus 4
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end, it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
End
||: G5 | Cadd9 D5 :|| G |
Time Of Your Life Chords: Learn the progressions
The chords are super simple and diatonic, only making use of the I, IV, V, and VI, it’s the defined picking pattern that makes it stand out (more on this later).
The intro and verse are I – IV – V on a loop in the key of G, like this:
||: G5 (I) | Cadd9 (IV) D5 (V) :||
The bridge introduces the sad VI chord and mixes things up, like this:
||: Em (VI) D5 (V) | C (IV) G5 (I) :||
The chorus sticks with the Em – G which during the bridge, as it repeated had become a loop, like this:
| Em (VI) G5 (I) | Em G5 |
| Em D5 (V) |
Using a chord chart, Time Of Your Life looks like this:
Time Of Your Life Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Notice how the first three sections are repeated three times (D.C x3). This is followed by the solo, chorus and outro.
You don’t get any rhythm in a chord chart, the idea is that you use it after you learn the song, to glance at, in case you need to be reminded of a section.
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Time Of Your Life Chord Chart PDF.
This chart was created using iRealPro, here’s a link to that file: Time Of Your Life iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Below you get a course preview of how to play Time Of Your Life, complete with TAB, play-along loops and in-depth discussions about each section, creating a 2nd guitar part and even playing the fiddle solo!
Once you’ve been through that process, the chord chart you saw above will be all you need.
Time Of Your Life TAB | Course Preview
Apart from the fast picking and strumming of the original guitar, if you go all the way, you’ll discover how the most challenging part of learning how to play Time Of Your Life is to play the fiddle solo on the guitar, note-for-note!
In the beginner course, we do all this but also change the key, apply a capo, and create a 2nd guitar part.
Once you’ve learned the 2nd guitar part, you, me, and the singer can play this song together as if we are a band. Although, we will sound a bit country!
This is perhaps the most interesting part of learning this Green Day tune. If you start including the 3rd in the chords, it does sound like country music.
What Billie Joe so cleverly does is play the open-position chords of G and D as power chords, G5 and D5, very punk!
Before we get to the 2nd guitar and violin solo, we must first learn how to play this like Billie Joe, on just one guitar and to do that, we practice using loops at different tempos.
Above you see an example of this for the verse, here’s the TAB for it, play along with the video!
In the course, you’ll get more examples of how to play the verse, next, we do this to the chorus as well.
We also practice sweeping exercises as this will help to build the speed and accuracy you’ll need to play Time Of Your Life well.
Once we can do all this, we’ll invent the 2nd guitar buy a cowboy hat and learn that amazing fiddle solo!
Here’s a link to the 8 step-by-step guitar lessons: Time Of Your Life – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Time Of Your Life is not called Time Of Your Life!
Time Of Your Life was originally named Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) but has also been called Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance) as well as just Good Riddance!
Initially, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the song for the breakthrough album Dookie (1994), but it was held back three years for the follow-up album Nimrod which was released in 1997.
As a single from Nimrod, Time Of Your Life did very well and was the only crossover single with worldwide success from the album.
Some might even say Time Of Your Life kept Green Day in the limelight between Dookie and American Idiot.
According to bassist Mike Dirnt, Time Of Your Life was, in comparison to the rest of the material on Nimrod, “The most punk we could go”.
Time Of Your Life Chords | Related Pages
Time Of Your Life | 8 Step-by-step Guitar Lessons + TAB
The biggest hurdle to overcome playing Time Of Your Life is to pick fast in a sweeping motion. To improve, we’ll practice a sweeping exercise first.
Once you can play the complete song, the final challenge lies in playing a 2nd guitar part, including a note-for-note version of the violin solo.
Five Similar Tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Basket Case chords by Green Day
- Breakfast At Tiffany’s chords by Deep Blue Something
- Hey Ya! chords by Outkast
- House Of The Rising Sun chords by The Animals
- Wonderwall chords by Oasis
Green Day tunes
Green Day’s third album, Dookie (94), took the band to superstardom. With fifteen million copies sold, they became everyone’s favourite punk trio.
After a few more albums, Green Day released American Idiot (04). This firmly established them as one of the best-known bands in the world.
Green Day on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Time Of Your Life 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.
