Love Train (The O’Jays) Guitar Lesson with TAB

Love Train Guitar Lesson + TAB
In this guitar lesson, we look at TAB designed to work in a wedding band. All sections are covered to prepare you for the Love Train conga!


Love Train | TAB


Let’s work our way through all of Love Train’s sections using TAB so you can play a wedding with great success and make money – perhaps the most difficult thing to achieve on the guitar!

Here’s the intro which is also the chorus, I’ve got several ideas for this all designed based on my experience of playing in a band at a wedding with the crowd doing the conga.

Love Train TAB chorus, idea 1.

This first idea is based on providing a steady rhythm with minimal movement.

Here’s idea 2. Now we add some licks and extend the chords to 6.

Love Train TAB chorus, idea 2.

This is the 3rd idea and is closer to what happens in the original recording.

Love Train TAB chorus, idea 3.


Finally, here’s a transcription of what happens on the actual recording, to me, this only works if it’s a big band with someone else providing the chords.

Love Train TAB chorus, idea 4.

Let’s move on to the verse, I love this part, it’s not transcribed, I developed it. Perhaps I should have written G6G in the TAB. I did put that in the chord chart for Love Train.

Love Train TAB, verse.

I think my favourite part is AmG/A and then back to Am again. It’s so subtle but signals to everyone else in the band that you’ve done your homework, always a good plan when getting paid.



Finally, here’s the middle 8, complete with a modal interchange.

Love Train TAB, middle 8.

I feel it’s necessary to hold it down here with 8th-note chord stabs as everyone else in the band will most likely “open up”, i.e. the drummer may play a ride, abandoning the hi-hat.



Love Train TAB | Related Pages


Love Train | Chords + Lyrics

Love Train chords lesson.

You can learn how to play Love Train by O’Jays using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

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Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play the TAB for Love Train, try these five tunes from the songbook.


The O’Jays tunes

The O'Jays wrote Love Train.

Formed in 1958 under the name The Mascots, The O’Jays are amazingly still together, over six decades later.

Their best-known tunes include Back Stabbers, Now That We’ve Found Love, For The Love Of Money, and their signature song Love Train.


The O’Jays on the web

Listen to O'Jays on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson and TAB for Love Train.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm featuring TAB covers Love Train. 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.


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