These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ | TAB
Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ can be arranged beautifully on just one acoustic guitar—even those iconic horn riffs can be included.
Let’s start with the intro and verse riffs. This is exactly as played on the original recording:
Once you’ve nailed the double hammer-on, this riff almost plays itself. Naming the chords here is tricky—none of the common names quite fit.
The main E chord could technically be labelled E7#9, since you hammer-on from a m3rd and b7 to a major 3rd and root. But calling it E7#9 feels off, so I’ve opted to label it simply E, even though that’s not 100% accurate.
The same goes for the A5. The hammer-on moves from the b7 and 4th to the root and 5th. You might call it A7sus4, but again, that doesn’t feel quite right—A5 is a better functional label for our purposes.
Here’s the chorus riff. The G chord is borrowed from the parallel minor key (Em), which makes this a modal interchange—or a bIIIx if you prefer staying in the key, and adjusting the Roman numerals:
Now, let’s bring in that famous horn riff from verse 3. Here’s how you can play it on one acoustic guitar:
Play this slowly at first and gradually increase the tempo. When it feels fluid, try it with the original recording.
Finally, the outro riff—there are two ways to approach this, and I suggest you try both to see which fits your style best:
There may only be three chords in These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, but it’s how you use them that makes all the difference—a lesson this tune drives home perfectly.
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These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ | Chords + Lyrics
Learn to play These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ by Nancy Sinatra using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| E | E | E | E |
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