The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy (The Most Feel-Good Chord Progression Ever?)

hello my name is ayla today i'm going to be talking to you about the most feel-good chord progression of all time i think we all have those songs that we listen to whenever we just want to have a better day than we're having already and this song is my go-to always i think it's one of my personal favorite feel-good songs of all time and i'm going to play it for you right now guess who just got back today then while that boys that have been weak haven't driving all the old man crazy the boys are back in [Music] that town the boys are back in town by thin lizzie an irish rock band from the 70s and this song to me has always felt like summer is just around the corner and finally we've come to that time of the year where the days are long and you can just relax and have a good time and what's really interesting about this song is ever since i was little when i listened to it even though the lyrics were telling the story even without the lyrics just the chords on their own seem to be telling me that story too and so i think for anyone who's interested in songwriting to start to look under the hood it's some of the best songs that have been written to learn how to use chords to communicate emotion it can be such a valuable experience and that's the intention of this lesson today and i want to show you how to play this song and also i want to maybe allow you to start attaching certain emotional responses to chord movement and again that's so helpful for songwriting and it might allow you to listen to songs with a different perspective as well so first we're going to start with the verse of this song and the verse is essentially two chord progressions put together that are similar but a little different [Music] and what's happening here is we're starting in the key of a flat major i do think in the original song the guitars are down tuned but essentially we're in the key of a flat and so we start here with an a flat major chord right off the bat we're moving to this wonderful c minor seven chord this is a chord movement that you would call a one to three movement if you happen to be familiar with theory but if you're not all you really need to pay attention to is what it feels like to go from that first chord to that second chord and to me i've always thought that this has felt almost nostalgic i don't know the feeling of going from the one chord to the three chord has a really particular emotion to it for me and so see if you can tap into whatever emotion you have when you hear that chord movement and what's cool about this first nostalgic kind of yearning chord movement is we immediately follow it with a lift where we go from the three chord to the four chord which is in this case d flat major we go to this really cool f sus chord uh and you can call this the six chord if you know your theory but uh all you need to pay attention to is again the feeling of this chord and something else that's really cool to notice is usually in a chord progression that six chord would be just a regular minor chord like what i just played here but in this song it's played as a sus chord and if you don't know what that means all you really need to pay attention to is the fact that it kind of sounds more mysterious it sounds more adventurous maybe i don't know this is something that joni mitchell has used a lot in her writing she loves to use these sus chords because they almost feel unresolved so it really makes you feel like you want to move somewhere else you move back to that c minor 7 and then back to this f sus chord again so so far we'd have this [Music] and then we end with my favorite part of the whole chord progression [Music] this is called the two five one very worth knowing what a two five one is uh but in case you don't know what we're doing here is we're playing a b minor seven chord that's our two chord going to our e flat five chord cause that's our five chord in the key of a flat and we're playing a chord that stevie wonder loves a lot this is a dominant nine sus four chord and then we resolve it back to a flat again so just to reiterate our first chord progression a flat major c minor seven and that was d flat major f sus c minor seven f sus b minor seven e flat dominant nine says four and then back to a flat major again uh and i lied actually in the first part i said that this was my favorite chord movement this is my favorite chord movement let me show you in the second half of the verse starts the same way but then that's what's different and everything else about the second part of the verse is the exact same as the first part but what's really interesting about this chord movement is ever since i was really young i had this whole list of songs that i'd listened to and i'd hear a certain change in the chords that made me really feel a lot of emotion and then i started noticing that they all contained this chord movement like sitting on a dhaka bay by otis redding or the pre-chorus of saturn by stevie wonder or i'd have you anytime by george harrison or call me by ludic and uh basically you're just taking a cord you're moving it up by three frets or in other words a minor third interval and you're actually breaking out of the chords of a flat major when you do that but it sounds so cool it's like this brief moment where you venture outside of the key so now that we've looked at the verse i want to very quickly take a look at the chorus because this has to be one of the most iconic and anthemic rock and roll choruses it really feels like we're back home again and again the lyrics perfectly describe this but even without the lyrics [Music] i still get this feeling of being back home again or like summer's finally arrived again or you're finally seeing your friends that you've missed so much for the first time in a long time it just feels like that and the chords in this part we start with an a flat major chord [Music] we have this really iconic little riff here [Music] on the sixth fret of the a string to the eighth fret and then eighth fret of the e string [Music] and the next two chords we have a b-flat minor seven and then a d-flat major chord and then back home to our a-flat major again and if you want to make it even more rock and roll you can just play these as power chords [Music] that's what they do in the original song but the full expanded chords were what i just played for you prior to that and again this song when i just hear the chords on their own i think of summertime i think of good times and let me know if you agree or if you disagree please let me know in the comments below and let me know what song you always listen to to get those feel good feelings and thanks so much for watching i hope you learned a little something from this video and i'm gonna play the whole thing one more time for you just so you can hear it and i hope you have a great day [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Musora

Views: 124,941

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Id: HkM0-BmMINs

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022