How to play Crazy On You by Heart
Crazy On You by Heart is a great song for acoustic and electric guitars. A 1970s Rock classic, it features Nancy Wilson on acoustic guitar, her sister Ann Wilson on vocals and comes from Heart’s breakthrough 1975 album Dreamboat Annie that launched them to worldwide success. As well as the gorgeous title track, the album includes their international hit Magic Man. From the high watermark years of Progressive Rock, the imaginative writing and arranging, together with the high production values of Crazy on You typify the ingenuity of the era.
Chords: Am F C Dm G E11 Em F#m D C#m Bm A E E6 E7 ; mostly in open-position but the F bar-chord is an important part of the intro/chorus progression. Includes minor bar-chords in 2nd and 4th frets.
What kind of guitar is best? definitely a steel-string tune, this one! Crazy On You features well defined acoustic-steel rhythms and electric guitar parts, neither of which sound quite right on nylon-string guitar.
Pick or fingers? Definitely with a pick! (Awww come on, it’s a 1970s Rocker - get over the finger-style thing!)
Does it need a capo? No - it’s in the key of A Minor and, typical of the era, was recorded at concert pitch.
Why do some chords enter on the last quaver of a bar? This is typical of ‘70s Rock rhythms. A new chord jumping in on an accented upbeat adds intensity to the momentum of the rhythm and makes the progression feel like it is pushing forward. This makes you work harder with your chord changes; they have to be bang on time. More often than not, the rhythm then ties over to the 1st downbeat of the new bar; you can think of it as that beat suddenly jumping forward by a half-beat.
Why isn’t the fancy solo acoustic guitar intro included? Because it’s too intricate to summarize in an abbreviated style. Performed with thumb-pick and fingers, It contains lots of short slurred notes, fast triplet rhythms and quaver chord phrases. It’s a wonderful piece of guitar work and complex playing like this needs proper notation to do it justice; TAB alone is not complete enough to convey it fully.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : Crazy On You has an impressive selection of chords (15 different chords in one song - wow!). To learn more about these chords, and how to interpret the rhythms check out MGCS1 pages 8, 10, 12-15 17, 19, 24, 31 and 34.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 & 2 are perfect companions for our song guides- They are specifically designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master their strumming patterns, bar chords, arpeggios and many other techniques.