Creedence Clearwater Revival
Proud Mary chords
Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival is an intermediate song in D, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (C, A, G, F, D, Bm) across 4 sections: Intro → Verse → Chorus → Outro. 4 of the 6 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: F, Bm.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: A → Bm, once.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape F
- Key
- Dwith no capo
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 64 open, 2 with a barre
- Sections
- 4each with its own progression
Chords in Proud Mary
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
Outro4/4 · ♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Proud Mary
Most of this song sits on a single D chord, so the difficulty is not the chord changes — it is the feel. The verses are a one-chord vamp with a rolling eight-note groove that has to stay perfectly even while you sing over it, and the chorus suddenly moves to A, Bm and back to D. The Bm is the only shape that needs real work; the rest are open chords you probably already own. Expect to spend your first week on the right hand rather than the left.
Practise A to Bm as a change of chord quality as well as position. Open A is x-0-2-2-2-0; Bm is x-2-4-4-3-2. Add the fret-2 barre, move the D and G string notes to fret 4 and set the B string at fret 3. Sliding the A major shape unchanged up two frets gives B major, not Bm.
Practise at 80 BPM, four beats per chord, and loop the verse vamp until your strumming hand can keep going for two minutes without speeding up. Then add the chorus and finally the intro in its own right. The record famously starts slow and then doubles its tempo, so once the whole song is comfortable at 80, try playing the first two verses at that speed and then pushing to 130 for the rest — that gear change is the point of the song, and it only works if you can hold a groove.
How to practise Proud Mary
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
C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → F (1-3-3-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Bm (x-2-4-4-3-2, intermediate, needs a barre)
4 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave F until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → A3×A → Bm1×A → C1×A → 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
- CIntro
- AIntro, Chorus, Outro
- GIntro
- FIntro
- Devery section
- BmChorus
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 Proud Mary 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
C A G F D Bm
4 of 6 stay open
Fret 1
B Ab F# E C# Bbm
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 2
Bb G F Eb C Am
3 of 6 stay open
Fret 3
A F# E D B Abm
3 of 6 stay open
Fret 4
Ab F Eb C# Bb Gm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
G E D C A F#m
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 6
F# Eb C# B Ab Fm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
F D C Bb G Em
4 of 6 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 Proud Mary clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Father and Son, 500 Miles, The One That Got Away, Treat You Better.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Proud Mary 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.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
134bars of this chord across the songbook
24songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 19×.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
114bars of this chord across the songbook
29songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 38×.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
84bars of this chord across the songbook
17songs use this shape
Most often followed by A, 13×.