John Denver
Country Roads chords
Country Roads by John Denver is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 4 chords (G, Em, D, C) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse ×2 → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 82 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: C → G, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 82BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 4all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Country Roads
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar, four beats to the bar: the shape lands on beat one and the dots mark the beats after it, so you can see where the change falls without any lyrics. Where a section has no strumming pattern written, play one chord per bar. Tap a bar to hear it.
Lyrics are not reproduced for this song: they are still in copyright and this site has no licence to publish them. The chords, structure, strumming and sing-along timing are all here. Songs whose words are public domain →
Intro♩=82
Verse× 2 · ♩=82
Chorus♩=82
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Country Roads
Take Me Home, Country Roads is the definitive campfire song: four open chords, an instantly recognisable intro, and a chorus that entire rooms sing at the top of their lungs. If you know G, Em, D and C, you know this song.
The verse is a gentle I–vi–V–IV walk that lands back on G every time, and the chorus lifts with the same chords in a different order — G, D, Em, C — which is what makes it feel like a release even though no new material appears.
Strum with a bouncing country feel: bass note, then down-up-down-up, with a slight emphasis on beats two and four. The D-to-Em change in the chorus is the only moment that needs practice. Capo up a step or two if you’re singing it yourself and the key doesn’t sit right.
How to practise Country Roads
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner)
4 of the 4 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → G3×D → C3×Em → D2×G → D2×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Gevery section
- Emevery section
- Devery section
- Cevery section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 49 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 49 → 62 → 74 → 82 BPM. The recorded feel is around 82 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 74 for longer than feels necessary.
Every section here uses the same set of shapes, so there is no section to single out. Whatever you can play once, you can play all the way through.
Playing Country Roads with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
G Em D C
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 1
F# Ebm C# B
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Dm C Bb
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 3
E C#m B A
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Cm Bb Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D Bm A G
3 of 4 stay open
Fret 6
C# Bbm Ab F#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C Am G F
3 of 4 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Country Roads clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Wonderwall, Let It Be, Creep, Hallelujah.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Country Roads turns up across all 80 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
418bars of this chord across the songbook
59songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 80×.
113bars of this chord across the songbook
30songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.
363bars of this chord across the songbook
54songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.