Jimmy Buffett
Margaritaville chords
Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett is a beginner song in D, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (D, A, A7, A/C#, D7, G) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: A → D, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Dwith no capo
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 6all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Margaritaville
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
Chorus♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Margaritaville
Five chords, no barres, and a groove that is easier to feel than to explain. The verse is a slow circle around D with A and A7 to lean on, and the chorus lifts into G and A before dropping back to D. What makes it sound like a beach rather than a practice room is the right hand: relaxed downstrokes, nothing clipped, and a little space between the chords so the open strings can ring out. Play it lightly and the song breathes; play it hard and it turns into a shanty.
Both seventh chords are one-finger moves, which is why they are worth learning here. From A, simply lift the middle finger off the G string and you have A7. From D, keep the index finger on the G string at fret 2, move the middle finger down to the B string at fret 1 and the ring finger onto the top E string at fret 2, and you have D7. Those small lifts are the entire character of the arrangement: they push the music forward at the end of each phrase and then let it settle back onto D.
Practise at 100 BPM with one chord per bar, playing only a bass note on beat one and a light down-up on the rest until the pulse feels lazy enough. Loop the verse until A and A7 alternate without a stumble, then add the chorus and the four-bar intro. If you want the record’s bass line, walk up to the A from below at the end of the chorus so the lowest note climbs before the next verse begins, and finish by holding the final D for two full bars.
How to practise Margaritaville
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
D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → A/C# (x-4-2-2-2-0, beginner) → D7 (x-x-0-2-1-2, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner)
6 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
A → D4×G → A4×D → A2×A → A/C#1×
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
- Devery section
- Aevery section
- A7Verse
- A/C#Verse
- D7Chorus
- GIntro, Chorus
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 Margaritaville 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
D A A7 A/C# D7 G
6 of 6 stay open
Fret 1
C# Ab Ab7 Ab* C#7 F#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
C G G7 G/B C7 F
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 3
B F# F#7 F#* B7 E
2 of 6 stay open
Fret 4
Bb F F7 F/A Bb7 Eb
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 5
A E E7 E* A7 D
6 of 6 stay open
Fret 6
Ab Eb Eb7 Eb* Ab7 C#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
G D D7 D* G7 C
6 of 6 stay open
* this position has no separate fingering for a bass-note inversion in our chord library, so the parent chord is shown. Play that shape and the inversion note is an optional bass addition.
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Margaritaville 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 Margaritaville 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.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.
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×.
1bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 1×.
44bars of this chord across the songbook
12songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 20×.
418bars of this chord across the songbook
59songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 80×.