Ben E. King
Stand By Me chords
Stand By Me by Ben E. King is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 4 chords (G, Em, C, D) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse ×2 → Chorus (same as verse) ×2. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 119 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: C → D, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 119BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 4all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Stand By Me
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♩=119
Verse× 2 · ♩=119
Chorus (same as verse)× 2 · ♩=119
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Stand By Me
Stand By Me is the ultimate first-song-with-a-band tune: four open chords, one unforgettable bass line, and a I–vi–IV–V progression (G, Em, C, D) that has powered hundreds of hits since 1961.
The secret to sounding like the record is the bass movement under the chords. Walk your picking thumb G–A–B on the low strings over the first two chords, then C and D fall into place. If you’re playing alone, fingerpick the intro and strum the verses; with friends, lock the downstrokes to the shaker.
Keep the groove lazy and behind the beat — the song swings, it doesn’t march. Em to C is the only change that needs practice, and it appears in nearly every line, so you’ll get plenty of reps.
How to practise Stand By Me
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) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner)
4 of the 4 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → D3×D → G3×G → Em3×Em → C2×
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
- Emevery section
- Cevery section
- Devery section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 71 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 71 → 89 → 107 → 119 BPM. The recorded feel is around 119 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 107 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 Stand By Me 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 Em C D
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 1
F# Ebm B C#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Dm Bb C
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 3
E C#m A B
2 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Cm Ab Bb
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D Bm G A
3 of 4 stay open
Fret 6
C# Bbm F# Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C Am F G
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 Stand By Me 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 Stand By Me 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×.
113bars of this chord across the songbook
30songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.
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×.