Janis Joplin
Me and Bobby McGee chords
Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin is a beginner song in Bb, played with a capo on fret 3. The whole sheet is 4 chords (G, C, D7, G7) 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: C → G, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Bbwith a capo on fret 3
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 4all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Me and Bobby McGee
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Chord accompaniment only. Follow the section notes for this arrangement’s timing. Songs whose words are public domain →
Intro4/4 · ♩=90
Verse4/4 · ♩=90
Chorus4/4 · ♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Me and Bobby McGee
Capo on the third fret and four shapes — G, C, D7 and G7 — will play the whole song, which is why this is one of the first songs people learn to sing and strum at the same time. The record sits in Bb, so the capo is what makes your open G shapes match it; take the capo off and you can sing it in G instead. The verse is a lazy four-bar walk that keeps returning to G, and the chorus uses the same materials in a different order, with C taking the lead.
G to G7 changes the high E string from fret 3 to fret 1, not to an open string. Keep the low E at fret 3 and A at fret 2, rearranging fingers to leave the open middle strings clear. Practise this pair separately, then add C and D7 with one chord per printed bar.
Practise at 80 BPM, four beats per chord, and count out loud so the D7 lands on the first beat of its bar rather than a beat late. When the verse and chorus are comfortable, try singing while you play: the chord changes line up with the ends of phrases, which gives you a clear cue. The final verse of the record lifts a whole step, so if you want to follow it, move everything up two frets and keep the same shapes.
How to practise Me and Bobby McGee
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 speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → D7 (x-x-0-2-1-2, beginner) → G7 (3-2-0-0-0-1, 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×D7 → G3×G → C1×G → D71×
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
- D7Verse, Chorus
- G7Verse
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.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing Me and Bobby McGee with a capo
This sheet is written with a capo on fret 3. 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 capo
Bb Eb F7 Bb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 1
A D E7 A7
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 2
Ab C# Eb7 Ab7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 3as written
G C D7 G7
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
F# B C#7 F#7
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
F Bb C7 F7
1 of 4 stay open
Fret 6
E A B7 E7
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 7
Eb Ab Bb7 Eb7
no open shapes left, all barre
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Me and Bobby McGee clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Sweater Weather, Payphone, The Scientist, 505.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Me and Bobby McGee turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
45bars of this chord across the songbook
12songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 22×.
33bars of this chord across the songbook
13songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 11×.