One Love (Bob Marley) Guitar Lesson with Backing Tracks + TAB

In this guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play One Love by Bob Marley using all five CAGED shapes across two string sets - practise with Backing Tracks. You also get an acoustic arrangement!

One Love | TAB

There’s a lot of TAB to get through here—but don’t worry, we only use chords I–IV–V–VI.

Think of all this as a test: can you keep up?

We’ll begin by using only strings 1–3 and the concept of the closest possible shape. Once you’ve worked your way through all five CAGED areas, try improvising without looking at the TAB.

Here’s the lowest possible starting point, the A shape. Play all chords using upstrokes only:

Stick with this until you’re playing cleanly with no mistakes. Then move up to start from a G shape. You don’t need to finish the whole song before you switch!

Same approach here—when you’ve got it, move up to the E shape.

Next, it’s the D shape (if you’re ready for it!).

And finally, the C shape. Can you play through all five shapes fluently?

One Love chords in all CAGED shapes, strings 2-4

Now repeat the process—but this time, using strings 2–4, and still playing only upstrokes.

Start again with the A shape:

One Love TAB, chorus A shape strings 2-4.

Note that the IV chord (Eb) turns into a power chord here, which always happens when a D shape falls on strings 2–4.

Now begin from the G shape:

One Love TAB, chorus G shape strings 2-4.

Here, it’s the V chord (F) that becomes a power chord due to the D shape.

Next, the E shape—no power chords here:

One Love TAB, chorus E shape strings 2-4.

Now the D shape—chord I is a power chord in this version:

One Love TAB, chorus D shape strings 2-4.

Finally, the C shape again—no power chords this time:

One Love TAB, chorus C shape strings 2-4.

When you can play all 10 of these examples cleanly, try improvising freely along with the backing tracks at the top of this lesson.

One Love acoustic guitar arrangement (capo 3)

I couldn’t help myself—I had to put together an acoustic version too.

At first, I tried transcribing the bassline, but it was too loose and free. Instead, I focused mainly on the drum beat and came up with something that works better rhythmically.