Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman) Guitar Lesson with TAB

Baby Can I Hold You Guitar Lesson + TAB
In this guitar lesson, you get TAB for how to play all sections of Baby Can I Hold You, including licks incorporated into the strumming!


Baby Can I Hold You | TAB


There is so much to learn here in this seemingly simple song.

The best way to do this is to first look at the TAB, recognise all the intervals, and then use the chords with extensions to serve as a reminder, a simple chord chart will do then.

The intro is a perfect example of how you can turn simple chords into a riff if you pay attention. With lyrics, I wrote D (Dsus2) because it appears and then goes back to D again. But here with TAB, I write all chords.

The open strings take us to A7sus4, and the A7sus2 is a little bridge from sus4 to the major 3rd of the A7.

Baby Can I Hold You TAB, intro.

As the verse starts, we play exactly this again, but add to it in the last half of bar 2, like this:

Baby Can I Hold You TAB, verse.

The Em uses similar rhythms to what we set up, the G is in a 2/4 bar, very folky!



In verse 3, there’s an electric guitar lick which can be incorporated into the strumming, like this:

Baby Can I Hold You TAB, verse 3 lick.

Here’s the chorus. I’ve now included the movement of the bass from Em to G, we added an F#. The D chord is also played slightly differently, with just a bass note at first.

Baby Can I Hold You TAB, chorus.


Baby Can I Hold You TAB | Related Pages


Baby Can I Hold You | Chords + Lyrics

Baby Can I Hold You chords.

You can learn to play Baby Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

| D (Dsus2) | A7sus4 A7sus2 A7 | Em |
Sorry, is all that you can say…


Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play Baby Can I Hold You's chords, try these five tunes from the song book.


Tracy Chapman tunes

Tracy Chapman wrote Baby Can I Hold You.

Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her sensational singles Fast Car, Talking About A Revolution, and Baby Can I Hold You from her self-titled debut album.

Amazingly, these three songs were on the debut’s A-side.


Tracy Chapman on the web

Listen to Tracy Chapman on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson and TAB for Baby Can I Hold You.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm featuring TAB covers Baby Can I Hold You. 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.


Follow Spytunes

GET IN TOUCH