John Denver
Leaving on a Jet Plane chords
Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 4 chords (G, C, D, Am) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse ×2 → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 80 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: G → C, 12 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 80BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 4all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Leaving on a Jet Plane
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♩=80
Verse× 2 · ♩=80
Chorus♩=80
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Leaving on a Jet Plane
Leaving on a Jet Plane is really two songs that share one engine: G, C and D run almost the whole tune, so the only thing you have to memorise is where each phrase stops. The verse ends on a D that hangs across a full extra bar before G comes back, and that hang is exactly where beginners rush. Count it out loud — one, two, three, four — and let the chord ring rather than jumping back early.
The chorus takes the same three chords and simply starts every half on G with C in the middle, so it pushes forward where the verse settles. Your left hand barely moves all song: G and C share the same two fingers on the A and D strings, so between them you only lift the index and drop the ring finger back.
Use slow quarter-note downstrokes with a light upstroke on beat three; this song does not want a busy right hand from you. Set the metronome to 65 and loop the verse line alone until the D-to-G return stops feeling like a surprise. When that is solid, add the chorus, then run intro, verse and chorus as one piece. Only after ten clean minutes at 65 should you push toward the recorded 80. If your Am feels weak, spend two minutes changing C to Am on its own, eyes closed, and listen for the open B string ringing through both shapes.
How to practise Leaving on a Jet Plane
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) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner)
4 of the 4 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
G → C12×C → D4×C → G4×D → G1×
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
- Cevery section
- Devery section
- Am
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 48 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 48 → 60 → 72 → 80 BPM. The recorded feel is around 80 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 72 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 Leaving on a Jet Plane 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 C D Am
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 1
F# B C# Abm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Bb C Gm
1 of 4 stay open
Fret 3
E A B F#m
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Ab Bb Fm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D G A Em
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 6
C# F# Ab Ebm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C F G Dm
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 Leaving on a Jet Plane 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 Leaving on a Jet Plane 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×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.
116bars of this chord across the songbook
26songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 27×.