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Best one-chord and two-chord songs


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Sky Saxon's death got me to thinking about garage rock and simple, bash-fest types of songs from the era in which the Seeds sprang to notice. "Pushin' Too Hard" had two chords, so of course, every teenage band in the country easily learned it, flailing away on their Silvertone amp-in-the-case guitars. Mine did that song in A minor (and G)....or maybe it was E minor (and D).

Turns out that there probably weren't that many one-chord or two-chord Top 100 (in their time) songs that might still be considered "classics" or even memorable, but which ones should be considered?

Three-chord songs? Ennnh! Different subject/thread material; i.e., no "Louie Louie", no blues should be listed here.

In addition to "Pushin' Too Hard", about all I could come up with is "Shotgun", particularly the version by the Vanilla Fudge (at least, the core of it, some parts go out on different chord patterns but it's part of the Fudge arrangement).

"Land of A Thousand Dances"? Meh.

And how many chords does Tool's "Sober" have?

And that's all I can think of with this early in the morning...like I noted in the topic description, while they may be simple songs, compiling a list of 'em might not necessarily be simple.

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Guest pirateflynn

Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

one chord

Wrong. 2 chords. 1 bass line. Still fits the bill though. Great song!

-Austin

WRONG? Me about a Beatle tune? lol

There are some changes going on as they jam but I'm pretty sure that song is a C major drone. We need Brooks or HHB on the phone!

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Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

one chord

Wrong. 2 chords. 1 bass line. Still fits the bill though. Great song!

-Austin

WRONG? Me about a Beatle tune? lol

There are some changes going on as they jam but I'm pretty sure that song is a C major drone. We need Brooks or HHB on the phone!

I thought it went down to Bb for the "Is it not dying", etc...

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Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

one chord

Wrong. 2 chords. 1 bass line. Still fits the bill though. Great song!

-Austin

WRONG? Me about a Beatle tune? lol

There are some changes going on as they jam but I'm pretty sure that song is a C major drone. We need Brooks or HHB on the phone!

I thought it went down to Bb for the "Is it not dying", etc...

Yup. The bass line stays the same throughout, but the chord changes for the first "It is not dying" section and then returns back to C for the second "it is not dying" part.

Dammit, how come no one respects my musical authoritah!?!

-Austin

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We do an A/D medley that includes Hard to Handle, Fly, What I Got, Daughter and other stuff-sometimes we start and end it with the Schoolhouse Rock "Three (is a Magic Number)". At one point in HTH, we do toss in the E chord though...

"Should I Stay or Should I Go" is not a two chord song.

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Gosh! I think I don't know any song with only one or two chords... this one is really hard!

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2 chords:

Horse With No Name by America

Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash

1 chord:

Coconut by Harry Nilsson (not sure if the alternating bass note counts as a second chord)

The Clash tune has at least 4 chords, though you were probably thinking of the main verse part which is just D and G.

I'll submit Battleship Chains by the Georgia Satellites. C and G with raunchy tone and max rock n' roll attitude.

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Gun Street Girl by Tom Waits (2 chords) and probably a number of his other songs as well.

-Austin

(haven't had a chance to listen to Tommorow Never Knows again yet; my MP3's for Revolver are all f-ed up so I need to dig out the CD)

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