Traditional
You Are My Sunshine chords
You Are My Sunshine by Traditional is a beginner song in C, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (C, C7, F, Fadd9, G7) across 3 sections: Verse → Chorus → Outro. 4 of the 5 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: F. It sits at roughly 96 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: F → C, 4 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerbarre shape F
- Key
- Cwith no capo
- Tempo
- 96BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 54 open, 1 with a barre
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in You Are My Sunshine
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 →
Verse4/4 · ♩=96
Chorus4/4 · ♩=96
Outro4/4 · ♩=96
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play You Are My Sunshine
This C-key arrangement uses C, C7, F, Fadd9, G and G7. Start by learning the verse’s C to F movement, then add the seventh and ninth colours shown in the chorus.
C7 adds Bb on the G string at fret 3 to the open C grip. Keep C on the A string at fret 3, E on the D string at fret 2 and C on the B string at fret 1. The little finger supplies the new note; the high E may remain open.
Fadd9 here is x-x-3-2-1-3. F on the D string, A on G and C on B form the triad; G on the high E is the added ninth. Neither of the top two strings is open. Compare it with the small F x-x-3-2-1-1 by changing the high E from F to G.
G7 is 3-2-0-0-0-1 and normally uses three fingers. Listen to its F on the high E resolving to E in C. Practise that ending slowly, then follow the section cells above, giving each printed chord its full bar.
How to practise You Are My Sunshine
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) → C7 (x-3-2-3-1-0, beginner) → Fadd9 (x-x-3-2-1-3, beginner) → G7 (3-2-0-0-0-1, beginner) → F (1-3-3-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre)
4 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave F until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
C → G74×F → C4×C → F2×G7 → 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
- Cevery section
- C7Verse
- Fevery section
- Fadd9Chorus
- G7every section
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 58 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 58 → 72 → 86 → 96 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 96 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 86 for longer than feels necessary.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing You Are My Sunshine 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 C7 F Fadd9 G7
4 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
B B7 E Eadd9 F#7
3 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
A A7 D Dadd9 E7
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 5
G G7 C Cadd9 D7
5 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 You Are My Sunshine 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 You Are My Sunshine 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×.
12bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 6×.
114bars of this chord across the songbook
29songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 38×.
4bars of this chord across the songbook
2songs use this shape
Most often followed by E, 3×.
33bars of this chord across the songbook
13songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 11×.