A-Z Songbook, Dance, Disco & Funk, Intermediate Acoustic

We Are The People chords by Empire Of The Sun

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We Are The People | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 | Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Em | Bmadd4 |

Verse 1

| Em | Em | Bm | Bm |
We can remember, swimming in December.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Em | Bmadd4 |
Heading for the city lights, in 1975.
| Em | Em | Bm | Bm |
We share in each other, nearer than father.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Em | Bmadd4 |
The scent of a lemon, drips from your eyes.

Bridge 1

| Em | Em |
We are the people that rule the world.
| Bm7 | Bm7 |
A force running in every boy and girl.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 |
All rejoicing in the world.
| Am7 | B7omit3 |
Take me now, we can try.

Verse 2

| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 |
We lived an adventure, love in the Summer.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Am7 | Bm7 |
I followed the sun ’til night, reminiscing other times of life.
| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 |
For each every other, the feeling was stronger.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Am7 | B7omit3 |
The shock hit eleven, I got lost in your eyes.

Chorus 1

||: Cmaj7 | Em | D6 | D6 :||
I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me, but I know I try.
Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believing now?
I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me, but I know I try.
Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believing now?

Verse 3

| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 |
Can you remember and humanize? It was still where we’d energized.
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Am7 | B7omit3 |
Lie in the sand and visualize. Like it’s ’75 again.

Bridge 2

We are the people that rule the world.
A force running in every boy and girl.
All rejoicing in the world.
Take me now, we can try.

Chorus 2

Middle 8 (as verse 2)

| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 |
I know everything about you, know everything about me,
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Am7 | Bm7 |
know everything about us.
| Em | Em | Bm7 | Bm7 |
I know everything about you, know everything about me,
| Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Am7 | B7omit3 |
know everything about us.

Chorus 3

I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me, but I know I try.
Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believing now?
I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me, but I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believing now?
I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave me, but I know I try.
Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believing now?

We Are The People Chords: Learn the progressions

There are 3 chord progressions in We Are The People, all of which are very clever.

The first only appears during the intro and verse 1. This is it, with Roman Numerals:

||: Em (VI) | Em | Bm7 (III) | Bm7 |
| Cmaj7 (IV) | Cmaj7 | Em (VI) | Bmadd4 (III) :||

The most genius part here is that this doesn’t come back again. As we play the bridge and all future verses, we change We Are The People’s chords very subtly, like this:

||: Em (VI) | Em | Bm7 (V) | Bm7 |
| Cmaj7 (IV) | Cmaj7 | Am7 (II) | B7omit3 (III) :||

Both these parts are played on two guitars, one using a capo on fret 7, thinking in the key of Am. If this tune was in my intermediate course, I’d work out both so we could play it together but since it’s not, I’ve designed one part that works well for you to play as the only guitarist.

To achieve a similar sound, we use a combination of barre and open-position chords which can only be accurately described using TAB, here’s a link: We Are The People – Guitar Lesson with TAB.

I would recommend that the verse/bridge strumming is smaller and more disciplined, this will tighten everything up and create more focus, setting us up for a chorus. There’s TAB for how I would recommend you do this too.

For the chorus, we use these chords:

||: Cmaj7 (IV) | Em (VI) | D6 (V) | D6 (V) :||

Starting on chord IV is very clever, it means we feel as if we are going somewhere new (this is the Lydian mode). Finishing on chord V means we want to keep going.

Having studied the TAB and played along with the original, all you need to bring to a rehearsal or gig is this chord chart.

We Are The People Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro

Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: We Are The People Chord Chart PDF.

This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: We Are The People iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.

We Are The People and Pentatonic Substitution!

When I first heard the chorus melody of We Are The People, I was floored. How the melody hits all those amazing notes just knocked me out.

I spent several days listening to it on repeat, without picking a guitar up, it was as if I didn’t want to know what they were doing, I wanted it to be a mystery.

And it remained so for several years, I left it on purpose until one day, I had to play it in a gig.

I worked out the chords for We Are The People, which you can find above with lyrics, they’re simple, yet really clever.

I recorded it on a loop pedal and thought, maybe I can just find that melody if I keep trying for a while, I wanted to discover how clever it was.

Turns out that it was, just like the progression, much easier and also much more clever than I could ever have imagined, what they do is use pentatonic substitution.

The TAB lesson gives you all the answers.

We Are The People Chords | Related Pages

We Are The People | Guitar Lesson + TAB

In this guitar lesson, you get the TAB for how to strum all sections of We Are The People. We also look at how the chorus melody uses the pentatonic.

| Em | Em | Bm | Bm |
We can remember, swimming in December…

Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play We Are The People's chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.

Empire Of The Sun tunes

Empire Of The Sun wrote We Are The People.

Australian Empire Of The Sun was formed after an A&R man from EMI introduced Luke and Nick to each other.

The duo are best known for their first two singles and massive hit tunes We Are The People and Walking On A Dream.

Empire Of The Sun on the web

About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson about We Are The People chords.

This was a guitar lesson about We Are The People 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.