Chords for Copperhead Road (Steve Earle) - Mandolin Lesson

[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ [D] _ Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to [F] RPM rock and pop mandolin once again
Your site for learning classic rock and pop songs on the mando and even for learning some country pop songs
And that's what we'll look at today.
My name is Mike Dijon and today
We're going to examine
Copperhead Road one of Steve Earle's most popular songs and one of the most popular
Mandolin tracks from well from pop music and country music history, but certainly it's a crossover song.
It's not true country
It's not true rock or pop
It's kind of a mixture of both even some elements of hard rock in this song, which I really like
But it's got a wonderful mandolin part
It's a very simple song only three chords
But that that signature riff off the beginning of the song is really fun to play and it really stands out when you're able to
Do it.
I love that song and I love that riff
So I hope you I hope you enjoy today's tutorial on Copperhead Road by Steve Earle
But before we get to that, please if you haven't subscribed to this channel already, please do so
By hitting that little red button way down there in the lower right corner of your screen
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So now without waiting any further, let's dive into Steve Earle's Copperhead Road for mandolin
All right, we've zoomed in for Steve Earle's Copperhead Road a really cool mandolin song
Fairly simple and it starts off with this iconic [D] riff _
[A] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
[A] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ All right.
So what is Steve Earl doing there?
well, actually I should point out first that I've seen many people try to play the song on YouTube [Ab] and
With varying degrees of difficulty or not and a lot of people seem to play it differently
I watched Steve Earl playing it live on some TV show, of course on YouTube
But I watched [D] him do it and I'm trying to get the part, you know as close to what he did
On that version.
So that's what I'm going by here.
So we start off in the key of D
again, another one of these songs that has that
Nice open D chord here the second fret of the G string and second fret of the high E string
[E] And what he's doing [Ab] in this [D] song is he's hammering
that note there the second fret note on the G string to the a so GA [A] and _ _ _
Every time he comes back to it.
He
Kind of takes a little bit of a pause to get that hammering note in there
So listen closely for that if you're gonna listen to [D] the original track, so you want to go like [Dm] this
_ [G] _ _
[Dm] Right.
[G] So he what is he doing there?
Well, [Dm] he's he's hammering there at the second [G] fret then he's moving basically moving his middle [C] finger all the way down here
[Am] To [C]
the fifth fret of the G string [D] and you can play this lick
With two fingers here [G] like I do
So you move to the [B] fifth and the fourth fret of the G string?
[G] then open and second
[D] Right like that
_ [G] _ [A] And all the while you're keeping that steady right hand going _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _
like that.
So keep that [Am] rhythm going
_ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ Right, so he goes like that
_ [A] _ _ Back up to the fifth fret again, and _ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] then [G] he stays on the open [D] G
Right, [C] he doesn't go back up there.
[A] I used to play it like this.
[A] _ _ _ [D] I
Used to go back up to that fifth fret again
But actually Steve Earl if you listen to it on the original and you know
You see watch some of his videos on YouTube.
You can see [A] he only goes _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] so he goes
to end that lick
all right, and that pattern continues throughout the entire song and
except for a couple of other occasions when there's another little chord change, which is pretty cool and
Basically, it only happens very quickly.
He goes from the [G] D to a G
All _ _ [D] _ right.
So what's that?
What's that chord [G] progression?
Well, the G is like that and then what I saw him do was this kind of C chord
_ like that [C] rather than
This C chord, which really kind of sounds well, it really stands out as a [G] C chord
This one is more like a G
Sus chord of some kind right so it but it actually works over the C in the bass
So what am I doing there?
Well a G [Em] chord second fret of the a [F] string third fret of the E string
Then I'm pulling just this one finger over [G] the pointer finger here to the middle like that
_ Like that which gives [C] you like a C chord voicing part [G] of the C chord here
But it's still played over those [G] last two notes the bottom two notes.
[D] So once again
_ _ [G]
Now the revenue man
Right something like that
_ [D] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _
Right and you [G] just keep that rhythm going again, right? _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[D] _ [G] Of course, you could play the part with the normal C chord.
You could go _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [D] But for my ears, I don't hear [C] that full C chord [G] being played I hear
Kind of that combination CG [D] there that works nicely
It's a little softer on that part and I think it works nicely
But it's up to you if you want to play it from [G] D to G to C to G then go ahead play it that way as well
Finally the last part that you really want to worry [D] about is that _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Right, you want to get that one?
_ [N] _ _
So it's one two, three, four [D] five _ _ _
Right and really cut off that D chord you can even play it this this D chord this time
But you see the difference doesn't seem to have that same ring as the original
It's nice and tight.
You can really chop it off, but I prefer _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ And that's Steve [Bb] Earle's Copperhead Road for a mandolin one of the great mandolin
Classics from country [F] pop and rock music over the last well several decades.
I hope you enjoyed learning it today
Hope you enjoy all of the lessons on this channel this YouTube channel
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Once again,