High and Dry (Radiohead) Guitar Lesson with TAB

In this guitar lesson, you'll find TAB for playing the intro using two guitars. There's also a one-guitar part for the verse and chorus!

High and Dry | TAB

High and Dry’s intro can be done in two ways. Like Radiohead does, or further down the neck, which I feel works better if you’re on your own.

Should you play High and Dry using two acoustic guitars or a loop pedal, pick one of these each!

These are the differences between the two sections:

The original part plays an octave of the 3rds for the E/G# chord, the alternative only has one
The F#m11 in the original part doesn’t have a m3rd, making it an F#7sus4
The rhythms on beat two have fewer strums in the alternative part
The last two bars in the original part have a power chord, the alternative part has the full triad

The verse chords, on one guitar, are probably best played mainly like this TAB show:

Notice how we in the verse play a full F#m11, and also how the rhythm is that of the alternative part on beat 2.

Every other time, you could put that Esus4 in, although on the original recording, they only do this during verse 1.

The chorus needs more of an 8th note feel, try playing High and Dry’s chorus like this TAB suggests:

You can learn to play High and Dry by Radiohead using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

| F#m11 | Asus2 | E | E |
Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that’s pretty clever, don’t you, boy…

Formed in the mid-80s as the members met in a boarding school, Radiohead went on to become the most credible band from the U.K. in the 90s.

Their best tunes include Creep, Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, No Surprises, Karma Police, Paranoid Android, and Everything In Its Right Place.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm features TAB and covers High and Dry. 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.