Chords for Elvis Presley "Return to Sender" - Easy Rhythm Guitar Songs Lesson

Hey everybody, Rob coming to you today from Summers Point, New Jersey.
A few days ago I got a request for one of my all-time favorite songs.
It's called Return to Sender.
It was made famous by Elvis Presley,
originally written by [B] Winfield Scott and Otis Blackwell.
So [Gm] I thought I'd give you a quick introduction to this tune.
Of course
I'll be doing a more robust lesson on it later.
_ [A]
So we have a capo on fret 3 _ [Eb] and we're going to be playing seemingly
in the key of C, but because of that capo we'll actually be in the key of E
flat.
_ All right we're standard tuning.
Let's
jump into the intro section first.
It's [C] going to look and sound like this. _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ Return [Cm] to sender, _ _ [Gm] _ [Fm] _ return _ [Bb] to sender. _ _ _ _
[Bb] Okay so right there we have the main strumming pattern, chord [Gm] progression,
and a little riff that's going to be repeating itself throughout the tune.
Let's start with that little riff.
We're on the third fret relative to the capo,
low E string, then to the open A, [C] _
then to the second
[D] fret, open A again, and back to the third fret [Bb] low E.
_ All right you put that together and we [C] have.
_ _ [Bb] It's going to sound great if you
palm mute [G] it.
_ _ Okay it depends on what effect you're
going for there.
All right from there we're into [Eb] a basic
chord progression.
C major to A [Cm] minor,
_ D [Fm] minor, _ _ [Bb] and G dominant [Bb] 7.
[Gm] Okay so this is a [Eb] 1, minor [Cm] 6, _ _
minor [Fm] 2, _ [Bb] 5 progression. _
All right and we're going to apply a
basic [G] calypso pattern.
[Eb] Down, down, up, up, [Cm] down, up, down, down,
up, up, [Fm] down, up, down, down, up, down, [Bb] up, down, up,
up, down, up.
Now you may have just caught me do something there
that's a little bit different.
One [E] option you have as a rhythm guitarist
[Eb] is to separate the bass from the treble.
So we can play
bass, down, up, up, [Cm] down, up, bass, down, up, up, down, up, D string, [Fm] bass,
down, up, up, down, [Bb] up, low E string. _ _ _
_ _ Very basic chord progression there.
All
right now jumping into the verse we're going to use that same exact chord
progression for line one and then a variation of it on [Eb] line two.
So I gave a letter [Cm] to the postman, _ [Fm]
he put it in [Bb] his sack. _ _
Now line two is going to be a little bit different.
[Eb] _ _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ [Cm] _ _ [Bb] _ So basically we just sped up the [Eb] chords a little bit.
So with C major, one,
two, three, [Cm] four, A minor, two, three, four, [Fm] and D, _ [Bb] G,
[Bb] and C with a stop there and then optional riff.
_ [C] _ _ _ Same exact thing
that we played in the beginning of the tune
and you can sing over top of it.
_ [C] _ _
_ [Bb] _ That gets you into the chorus section which is very simple,
but [Ab] it is going to introduce an [Eb] F major bar chord shape.
Making this a really
good tune to practice [Bb] if you're trying to reach that
beginner intermediate level.
So I'm barring the first fret relative to the
[Eb] capo.
I've got third fret A, third fret D, second fret G string, the thumb nice
and low so the index finger straightens, pulling back with both [Ab] arms for extra
pressure.
That should give you a nice clean bar chord sound.
Okay, getting started [G] with the chorus.
We're going to have F going to G dominant
seven for line one.
_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
Repeat that.
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] Same strumming pattern.
_ _ Okay now line two is a little bit different.
Starts off the same.
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ All right now go to C major [Gm] to C dominant [Eb] seven. _
No such zone. _ _ _
All right on to line three.
It's F to [Ab] G7 again. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
Okay now the final line of this chorus we're going to [Eb] D dominant [F] seven. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ [Ab] And _ [G] _ _ [Eb] I like to throw in a little walk down there at the end.
So we'd have that
D dominant seven and we're just going to play [A] base down up up down up base down
up up down up [F] base down up [G] down up G with a [Ab] short stop.
And if you like you
can walk down with me third fret of the D [G] string down to the second [F] _ open [Eb] D
right to the C [Ab] major chord.
_ [F] _ _ [Eb] _ Okay you put that together and I write I'm sorry but
my letter keeps coming [Bb] _ _ [G] _ [C] G320 _ [F] right back to the C major chord for [F] verse number two
which we played the exact same way as verse [Eb] number one.
So then I dropped it [Cm] in the mailbox
_ [Fm]
and sent special [Bb] D so on and so forth.
[Gm] Okay let's see if we can play all the chorus together.
Ready get and start with that F chord a one two three [Ab] four.
_ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb]
C major.
[Eb] _ _ _ _
G7.
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ [Eb] Then I dropped it in the [Cm] mailbox D minor [Fm] sent it special D back to C [Eb] right and early [Cm] next morning
[Fm] it came [Bb] right back [Eb] to me [Bb] she wrote upon it.
Okay that'll get you to [Gm] chorus two which is a half
chorus.
So just the first two lines and then that'll get us to a bridge section which is unique.
Okay so chorus [Ab] two _ return [Bb]
send a sing along with [Ab] me address [Bb]
unknown F [Ab] major no [Bb] such person C [Eb] major
no such C7 and to the [Ab] F major chord to start the bridge it'll look and sound like this.
This time I'm gonna take it myself [Eb] and put it right in her hands.
And _ [F] if it comes back
the very next [D] day then I'll understand _ _ [Bb] she wrote upon it gets you into chorus number three.
So that
bridge [G] section is pretty simple we have the F major chord for two rounds of that calypso strumming
[Ab] pattern.
This time I'm gonna take it myself then on to the next line C major to [Eb] C7 and put it right
in her hands.
_ All right then two rounds of the strumming pattern on [G] D7 for line three [F] and if it
comes back the very next day all right then to the G7 [Gm] for a quick stop then I'll understand she wrote
[Bb] upon it.
You can throw in the riff there if you like and then get into chorus three which is going
to kind of fade out.
All right [Ab] so return [Bb] _
sender you know all [Ab] this [G] address [Bb] unknown line [Ab] two no [Bb] such
number C [Eb] chord _ no such zone.
All right then you're just going to finish the tune up kind of like a
coda just fading out with return to sender F to G7 until the end of the song.
[Ab] So _ [Gm] return sender _
_ [Ab] _ return [Bb] to sender _
_ [Ab] return to sender. _
[Eb] _ All right you can resolve on a C major chord whenever you [G] like.
Congratulations [E] everybody you've just added another great tune to your repertoire you're
ready to