Radiohead
Creep chords
Creep by Radiohead is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 4 chords (G, B, C, Cm) across 4 sections: Intro ×2 → Verse ×4 → Chorus ×2 → Bridge. 2 of the 4 shapes are open chords and B is the one that needs a barre. It sits at roughly 92 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: B → C, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerbarre shape B
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 92BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 42 open, 2 with a barre
- Sections
- 4each with its own progression
Chords in Creep
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.
Intro× 2 · ♩=92
G… B… C… Cm…
Verse× 4 · ♩=92
Gbefore Beyes Cangel Cmcry
Gfeather Bworld Cspecial Cmspecial
Chorus× 2 · ♩=92
Cm… Gcreep Bweirdo Chere
Bridge♩=92
Cmrunning Cmrun Cmrun Cmrun
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Creep
Creep is four chords for the whole song — G, B, C, Cm — which makes it one of the most efficient songs in the beginner canon. The genius is in the one borrowed chord: C minor appears out of nowhere and instantly turns the mood from bright to gutted, right on the bridge cue where the song drops away.
Everything else is pure repetition. The intro is arpeggiated (pluck the four chords gently), the verse stays quiet, and the chorus famously explodes with crunchy full strums — the volume change, not any new chord, is what sells the chorus.
The only real challenge is the B major barre at fret 2. If it’s not clean yet, play B as a two-finger power-ish shape (x-2-4-4-x-x) and it will pass; keep working toward the full barre as your hand strength grows. Strum the chorus with all downstrokes to get that wall-of-sound feel.
How to practise Creep
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) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → Cm (x-3-5-5-4-3, intermediate, needs a barre) → B (x-2-4-4-4-2, intermediate, needs a barre)
2 of the 4 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave B until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
B → C3×C → Cm3×G → B3×
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
- GIntro, Verse, Chorus
- BIntro, Verse, Chorus
- CIntro, Verse, Chorus
- Cmevery section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 55 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 55 → 69 → 83 → 92 BPM. The recorded feel is around 92 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 83 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 Creep 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 B C Cm
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 1
F# Bb B Bm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F A Bb Bbm
1 of 4 stay open
Fret 3
E Ab A Am
3 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
Eb G Ab Abm
1 of 4 stay open
Fret 5
D F# G Gm
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 6
C# F F# F#m
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C E F Fm
2 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 Creep 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.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Creep 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×.
363bars of this chord across the songbook
54songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
9bars of this chord across the songbook
2songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7b5, 2×.