Waiting On An Angel | Chords + Lyrics (tune down 1 tone)
Intro
| 3/4 C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 |
| C | C/B | Am7 | G5 (hold) |
Verse 1
||: C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 :||
Waiting on an angel.
One to carry me home.
Hope you come to see me soon.
| F | G | Am | Am7/E | F | G |
‘Cause I don’t wanna go alone, I don’t wanna go alone.
Instrumental 1
||: C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 :||
Verse 2
Now, angel, won’t you come by me?
Angel, hear my plea.
Take my hand, lift me up.
| F | G | Am | Am7/E | F | G | C | C/E |
So that I can fly with thee, so that I can fly with thee.
Bridge 1
| F | G | Am | Am/E |
And I’m waiting on an angel.
| F | G | C | C/E |
And I know it won’t be long.
| F | G | Am | Am/E |
To find myself a resting place.
| F | G | C | C/E | F | G |
In my angel’s arms, in my angel’s arms.
Instrumental 2
||: C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 :||
Verse 3 (same as 2)
So speak kind to a stranger.
‘Cause you’ll never know.
It just might be an angel.
Come, oh, knocking at your door, come knocking at your door.
Bridge 2
And I’m waiting on an angel.
And I know it won’t be long.
To find myself a resting place.
In my angel’s arms, oh, in my angel’s arms, oh, arms
Instrumental 3
||: C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 :||
Verse 4
Waiting on an angel.
One to carry me home.
Hope you come and see me soon.
| F | G | C | C/E |
‘Cause I don’t wanna go alone.
| F | G | C | C/E |
I don’t wanna go alone, don’t wanna go.
| F | G | C |
I don’t wanna go alone.
Waiting On An Angel Chords: Learn the progressions
Played in 3/4, Ben Harper‘s Waiting On An Angel uses common open-position chords.
However, if you try to play along, you’ll soon realize that he’s tuned down all strings a tone, making a C chord sound like a Bb.
To get on the same frequency as Ben, use my chromatic tuner. Once sorted, you can play along using the chords and lyrics above.
Alternatively, you could ignore the detune and just play it on your own in standard tuning, effectively a tone higher than Ben’s original recording.
The verse chords are descending from I – VI using only the maj7 of chord I in between, we finish off with a V chord before it’s looped, like this:
||: C (I) | C/B (I/7) | Am7 (VI) | G (V) Gsus4 :||
At the end of the verse, we ascend from IV – V – VI, then use the 5th of the VI chord in the bass, leading the way to another IV – V, like this:
| F (IV) | G (V) | Am (VI) | Am7/E (VI/5) |
| F | G | C | C/E (I/3) |
The last chord is the home chord with its 3rd in the bass. Waiting On An Angel’s bridge chords recycle that last idea, very clever!
||: F | G | Am | Am/E |
| F | G | C | C/E :|| F | G |
There’s TAB available for both sections so they can play it exactly like Ben does, or teach someone else how to do it, this really is a perfect beginner song.
Here’s a link to that part of this lesson: Waiting On An Angel – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Once you know it, a simple chord chart is all you need, here’s one I made for you.
Waiting On An Angel Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
To understand the terms D.C. and D.C. al Coda, listen to the original recording as you follow along with the chart.
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Waiting On An Angel Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Waiting On An Angel iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Waiting On An Angel was one of Ben Harper’s best early tunes!
From Ben Harper’s debut album, Welcome to the Cruel World (1994) we find Waiting On An Angel. This, the amusing Mama’s Got a Girlfriend Now and Whipping Boy were the three best tunes on the debut.
His follow-up album, Fight For Your Mind was much the same with Another Lonely Day being in a similar vein.
Harper has an interesting career, staying on the same label (Virgin) he seems to have been allowed to grow as an artist, maintaining his characteristically sensitive streak.
The proof is in the output as he with Virgin released ten studio albums between 1994 and 2011. Looking back, it’s as if they allowed him to grow.
Following the last album for Virgin, Give Til It’s Gone, he’s released another seven albums, but on four different labels.
Out of all the albums on Virgin, my favourite is the Blind Boys Of Alabama collaboration in 2004, There Will Be A Light. In many ways, the epitome of not trying to be commercial, doing your own thing, and maintaining integrity.
Waiting On An Angel Chords | Related Pages
Waiting On An Angel | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play Waiting On An Angel by Ben Harper using TAB and chord analysis.
| C | C/B | Am7 | G Gsus4 |
Waiting on an angel…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
Ben Harper tunes
Ben Harper is an American roots musician who stretched his appeal around the globe by recording covers of Sexual Healing and The Drugs Don’t Work.
Harper’s first album, Welcome To The Cruel World (94), was followed by Fight For Your Mind only a year later.
Ben Harper on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Waiting On An Angel’s 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 by practising scales or studying theory in isolation.