Johnny Cash
Folsom Prison Blues chords
Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash is a beginner song in E, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (E, A, A7, B7, E7) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse → Break. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: A → A7, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Ewith no capo
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Folsom Prison Blues
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♩=90
Verse♩=90
Break♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Folsom Prison Blues
The chords are simple — E, A and B7 do most of the song — and the whole page is really about one right-hand pattern: boom-chicka-boom. You play a bass note with the thumb on the beat, then two light brush strokes on the off-beats, and you keep that engine running no matter which chord you are holding. Get it steady and the song plays itself; rush it and it sounds like a nursery rhyme. Nothing here needs a capo, and the strumming hand stays on autopilot throughout.
The two seventh chords are what make it sound like Cash rather than a campfire version. E7 appears in the break and in the walk-down, where the bass note slides E to E7 and back before the chord changes; A7 appears in the same place on the A chord. Both are one-finger adjustments of shapes you already know: to make E7 from E, lift the finger on the G string and let that string ring open. To make A7 from A, lift the finger on the B string. Nothing new to memorise, just a flick.
Practise at 80 BPM with a metronome clicking on all four beats, playing the boom-chicka-boom on a single E chord until the pattern is automatic and your thumb finds the right string without looking. Then run the verse loop twenty times, then add the intro, which is the same three chords in a different order. Only when both are solid should you speed up; this song is meant to sit at a relaxed walking pace, and playing it fast is the fastest way to lose the groove.
How to practise Folsom Prison Blues
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
E (0-2-2-1-0-0, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → B7 (x-2-1-2-0-2, beginner) → E7 (0-2-0-1-0-0, beginner)
5 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
A → A74×E → A2×E → E72×A → E1×
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
- Eevery section
- Aevery section
- A7Intro, Break
- B7Intro, Verse
- E7Break
Climb the tempo ladder
This sheet does not list a tempo, so pick one where every change is clean and use the metronome to move up in 4 BPM steps.
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 Folsom Prison Blues 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
E A A7 B7 E7
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
Eb Ab Ab7 Bb7 Eb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
D G G7 A7 D7
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
C# F# F#7 Ab7 C#7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 4
C F F7 G7 C7
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 5
B E E7 F#7 B7
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
Bb Eb Eb7 F7 Bb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
A D D7 E7 A7
5 of 5 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 Folsom Prison Blues 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 Folsom Prison Blues 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.
64bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by Eadd9, 6×.
120bars of this chord across the songbook
20songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 24×.
47bars of this chord across the songbook
14songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
5songs use this shape
Most often followed by E, 3×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 4×.