Bullet In The Head (Rage Against The Machine) Guitar Lesson with Backing Tracks + TAB

In this guitar lesson, we look at all the sections of Bullet In The Head using TAB, some of which have been slightly modified - Try it all with backing tracks!

Bullet In The Head | TAB

There are some very exciting riffs to memorise here. Let’s start with the bass, simply because we should always learn as much as we can.

Bass riff

The bass is actually played on fret 7 of string 5, but when translated to guitar this sounds too thin, so I move it down to the open E string, only hitting the higher E on the 16th note.

Verse Guitar

The guitar, against that great bass riff, plays open strings while using a whammy pedal to create a wild sound, eventually lowering the pitch with the pedal slowly.

Chorus

The chorus riff needs to sound huge, so instead of playing all the notes on the 6th string, I move to an open A5. To reach the F, bend the string with your fretting hand behind the nut if you have a Les Paul, use the whammy bar going up if you have a strat with a floating trem.

Solo

Next up, we have a wild whammy solo. At first, I thought the opening line was played on string 1, but it’s actually on string 6 with the whammy pedal switched on again.

The chromatic high power chords sound like a terrible exercise to my ears. Tom was a guitar teacher, so perhaps he enjoyed putting that in as a bit of a joke, adding to the dissonance.

The final lick could be modified, although that’s not what he does on the record, so I didn’t notate it that way. Do try it though: bend up to fret 17, then move between that note and fret 12 on string 1.

Instrumental 2 + Outro

The second instrumental and outro introduce a new, much faster riff. This increases the intensity and sounds great against what now feels like half-time drums.