How to play Good Luck, Babe by Chappell Roan
Good Luck, Babe by Chappell Roan is one of the biggest global hits of 2024. A brilliant ‘80s Pop takeoff, it may not feature guitar but it’s steady rhythm and classic structure make it perfectly playable for developing guitarists. This rhythm chart for Good Luck, Babe is a suggested part for accompaniment guitar and is ideal for guitarist-singers.
Chords: G A A5 D D5 Bm Em
Pick or Fingers? Pick will work best; the classic ‘80s feel recalls the Electric rhythm guitar style of that era. Most Pop guitar was played with a pick back then (yeah, really!)
Acoustic or Electric? Works well on all steel string guitars but less successful on nylon strings; needs a bit of that steel-string twang!
What does ‘palm-muted’ mean? Allow the outer edge of the palm to lightly mute the strings as you play quaver downstrums to create the verse rhythm. This contrasts well with the full-tone rhythm sound of the down - up strums in the chorus.
Do I have to play the Bm bar-chord? If you can manage it the bar-chord will sound best, but there is an easy Bm option. In the chorus the first bar of Bm displays the ‘easy Bm’ suggestion. To do this hold the D and just add your pinky to the 3rd string, 4th fret. This chord shape creates both a D6 and a usable, but incomplete Bm chord. Important to note is that if you use this option you must strum only four strings; the open 6th and 5th strings don’t work with the easy Bm.
How does the timing work? The rhythms in Good Luck, Babe are all straight 4/4 time quaver patterns. You can count the chorus strum pattern as “1 2 and 3 and 4 and” and so on. The verse pattern is all downstroke quavers; keep these as steady and even as you can. The suggested intro emulates the drum-machine intro. Percussive strums (the crossed strums) are ideal for this; lightly cover the strings so that each strum produces a blunt, percussive sound (not an actual chord sound). This is an effect often heard on electric guitars.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used in Good Luck, Babe, check out pages 5, 8, 10, 14-15, 21 and 34 - 35.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.
