Song 10: Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash
This is 100% the most fun song to play out of the 10 from the rock songbook that I’ve covered so far. Pretty simple open chords save for a couple of tricky things that I’ll go over below but I had a blast with this one despite my serious concentration face in the video lol.
What I’ve learned/techniques:
- Double time Rhythm. This was pretty difficult to grasp at first. It gets really fast and had to make sure I had the strumming part right. In the video lesson justin suggests down, down, up, down, up and in the rock sock book he suggests old faithful. I actually use both in the cover.
- E Shaped barre chords. In the video lesson justin basically suggests e shaped barre chords sans the bass notes for the G → F parts but I figured since I was just starting grade 4 that I’d just do the full barre chord for practice. A lot of chord perfect practice to make sure I can do the G and the F and slide between them without it feeling awkward.
- Changes. By far the hardest part of the song was the switch between D → E shaped G barre chord. I had a whole 5 minute section of my practice dedicated to switching between them. It wasn’t until a couple weeks of doing this did I really start to feel comfortable with the change and another incorporating it into the song but I think it was worth it. It’s def not perfect but good enough to play it for sure.
Sound:
I used a patch by Juca Nery that was designed to sound like the song. It sounds exactly like it to my ear but I guess you be the judge.
grabbed the backing track from: The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go - Guitar Backing Track with Vocals - YouTube. Seriously excellent backing track with a great count in which is great cause you have to keep time without drums for the first part which can be difficult.
Annnnd here we go Should I Stay or Should I Go!! (Advice and feedback always appreciated and welcome!)
