Bye Bye Love | TAB
In this guitar lesson, you’ll start by looking at the intro, which moves through A – C – D. The C chord is a bIIIx and the only chord played outside the key of A. Here’s the TAB:
You could potentially call the A chord an A/C#, although slash chords usually need to have a clear low note. This feels more like an inversion, with C# being the lowest note of the A chord.
The little rhythmic displacement—first hitting the A chord on beat 1, then on beat 2—is what makes the riff stand out!
Next, let’s move on to a hybrid way of playing the main chorus part, suitable for either acoustic or electric guitar.
In the original recording, one guitar uses a capo (thinking in G), another mainly plays barre chords, and a third guitar (Chet Atkins) plays licks—more on this later.
This means no guitar is actually playing open A, D, and E chords, but if you’re the only guitarist, this is what you should mainly do:
That C-shaped A in bar two is imperative—make sure you play it!
For the verse, here’s the guitar part I would recommend:
Notice how open strings are used at the end of bars to make it easier to transition to the next chord. Every note matters!
Finally, let’s look at a few Chet Atkins licks. Here are three for the E chord:
Notice how example 2 uses the major pentatonic scale, while example 3 moves into the major blues scale (mixing the minor 3rd and major 3rd). These are tiny but important differences that make a lick sound more country or more blues—you need to blend them naturally, not stick exclusively to one style.
Here are three licks for the A chord. These are all based on the major pentatonic scale. You could modify them by using the open A string or switching between the major pentatonic and the blues scale:
And here are the D chord licks:
After playing all the TAB examples along with the Backing Tracks, I’m sure you’ll find a way to create a part that works perfectly in a live band setting if you’re the only guitarist!
If you want to incorporate the Chet Atkins licks, you’ll need to make the strumming less intense. To achieve this, make the chord shapes smaller and reduce the number of strums!
Bye Bye Love Backing Tracks + TAB | Related Pages
Bye Bye Love | Chords + Lyrics
You can learn to play Bye Bye Love by The Everly Brothers using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| D | A | D | A |
Bye-bye love, bye-bye happiness.
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
