Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay- Otis Redding

“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” is a song co-written by soul singer Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper. It was recorded by Redding twice in 1967, including once just days before his death in a plane crash.

Sitting-On-The-Dock-Of-The-Bay

Verses

Barre chords are used in the original recording.

With Barre Chords…

Using Open Chords

You could play a more basic version that only uses open chords. You can still provide some of the “walk”.

Take the chord/lyric sheet and instead of using barre chords, just use the open chord form of the chords listed:

G                      B7
Sittin' in the mornin' sun
        C                        A
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
G                       B7
Watching the ships roll in
           C                    A
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

Here we go, just using open chords:

But, what about that cool walk from the C chord down to the A chord as found in the original transcription?

We can even add an additional walk from the G chord up to the B chord:

Life By The Drop- Part 4

Chorus

The chorus really just feels like an extension of the verse. It’s 6 measures long and contains 3 lines of lyrics.

[Chorus]
You’re living our dreams, oh you on top
My mind is aching, oh Lord it won’t stop
That’s how it happens living life by the drop

The first two lines follow a F#m, D, E chord progression over two measures. The F# is over the first measure and the D and E chords are found in the 2nd measure each getting two beats each.

The last line, “That’s how it happens, living life by the drop”, is sung over the F#m, D, and E chords again, but it’s switched up a little bit. The F#m only gets two beats followed by 2 measures of the D chord and finally a full measure of E, but this last measure is in 2/4 time!

At the end of the chorus, we’ll go back to two measures of the shuffle pattern to set up the next verse.

Bad To The Bone- George Thorogood

About “Bad To The Bone”

“Bad to the Bone” is a song by George Thorogood and the Destroyers released in 1982. It was not a major hit on initial release, but later the video for the song made recurrent appearances on the  MTV. Licensing for films, television, and commercials has since has helped make “Bad to the Bone” a staple of classic rock.

Note: This song is in open G tuning and uses a slide.

How to Tune To Open G

For open G tuning you will tune your guitar to D-G-D-G-B-D. I’ll show you how to tune to it in the following video.

How To Play “Bad To The Bone”

Bad To The Bone Tab

Bad To The Bone (Complete Tab PDF)

bad to the bone