Billie Jean | TAB
Let’s go through all sections of Billie Jean using TAB, starting with the intro – a bass line that looks like this:
This is an F# minor pentatonic riff, played as the chords move II – III – IV – III. I think you should double this part – hopefully, the bass player won’t mind!
Next, we start playing chords, which also feature in the verse. Here’s idea 1:
A Bm chord is added using the same rhythm as the previous chords. I included a slide-in on the A chord to spice things up.
Here’s idea 2. After learning both, feel free to blend them – and maybe even explore other areas of the neck to play Billie Jean in.
Let’s move on to the bridge. For the verse, I adapted the strings part for guitar – but in the bridge, I had to invent a part. Here’s what I came up with:
There’s a bit of modal interchange going on here. We shift from F# Dorian to F# Aeolian, making the D chord IV, F#m VI, and C# IIIx. You can explore this further in the chords lesson.
Now, here’s Billie Jean’s chorus in TAB. It’s similar to the verse, but with different chord shapes and a new approach to playing over Bm. In the chords and lyrics (chords lesson), some of the Bm chords are written as B5 – looking at the TAB, can you see why?
Finally, let’s look at that awesome Steve Lukather guitar lick.
When you can play all this TAB, try putting it together as you play using the backing tracks and chord chart at the top of the page.
Billie Jean Backing Tracks + TAB | Related Pages
Billie Jean | Chords + Lyrics
You can learn to play Billie Jean by Michael Jackson using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| F#m G#m | A G#m |
She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
