Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin' chords
The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (G, Em, C, Am, D) across 2 sections: Verse → Interlude (harmonica). Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 171 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Am → D, once.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 171BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in The Times They Are A-Changin'
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 →
Verse♩=171
Interlude (harmonica)♩=171
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play The Times They Are A-Changin'
This one is a waltz, not a strum in four, and that single fact decides whether it sounds like the record or like a campfire accident. Count “one-two-three” out loud for the whole song; each chord gets a full bar of three beats. The verse loop is G – Em – C – G, then G – Am – D – D, and the second bar of each line is where the song breathes. There is no chorus and no bridge — the harmonica instrumental simply repeats the same harmonic ground, so you never have to learn new material, only to keep the waltz pulse rock steady.
Two changes carry the whole arrangement. Going from G to Em you can keep your index finger planted on the A string at fret 2, because that B belongs to both chords: lift the middle finger off the low E string and drop it onto the D string at fret 2. Going from Am to D you can keep the ring finger on the G string at fret 2 — that A is shared as well — then move the middle finger to the B string at fret 3 and the index to the high E string at fret 2. Two anchor fingers mean the waltz never stumbles.
Practise with a metronome set to 3/4 at 100 BPM and one chord per bar, looping G – Em – C – G – Am – D without stopping for ten minutes. The trap is the accents: beat one should be the strongest, so use a bass note on the first beat and lighter strums on two and three. When that feels natural, take it to 140 and finally to the record’s brisk 170, and add the harmonica section as a four-bar break where you keep counting instead of waiting.
How to practise The Times They Are A-Changin'
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) → Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner)
5 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Am → D1×C → D1×C → G1×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
- EmVerse
- Cevery section
- AmVerse
- Devery section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 103 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 103 → 128 → 154 → 171 BPM. The recorded feel is around 171 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 154 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 The Times They Are A-Changin' 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 Am D
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
F# Ebm B Abm C#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F Dm Bb Gm C
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
E C#m A F#m B
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Cm Ab Fm Bb
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D Bm G Em A
4 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
C# Bbm F# Ebm Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C Am F Dm G
4 of 5 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 The Times They Are A-Changin' 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 The Times They Are A-Changin' 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×.
116bars of this chord across the songbook
26songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 27×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.