A veritable cornucopia of carefully crafted chord chart compositions!

Crooked Teeth – Death Cab For Cutie – I dig the guitar riff—the clean telecaster tone, even rhythm, and chromatic movement makes it sound like it should play during the credits of the latest James Bond movie.

I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab For Cutie – A lovely, lonely, love-in-the-face-of-death song with some great lines. “If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied / Illuminate the No’s on their Vacancy signs”

I Know You Well – Fountains of Wayne – “What?!” I hear you saying. “Only two Death Cab songs this update?” Well, how about a sounds-like-Death-Cab song? I like Fountains of Wayne because they can write both quiet, pretty love songs and rocking pop songs like “Stacey’s Mom.”

You Asked Me To – Alison Krauss – This is a great Waylon Jennings cover. I’ve tabbed out the song’s gorgeous acoustic guitar solo, and there’s a jam track for practicing the solo here.

Louisiana 1927 – Randy Newman – Change the name “President Coolidge” to “President Bush” and this song could have been written yesterday.

Hey Ya! – Outkast – Little Grace Noah, one of my younger students, requested this sweet hip-hop song. How cool is that? When I was in the fifth grade, I was listening to Huey Lewis and the News.

Girl’s Mind – Play – Not that Grace is immune to sweet and sticky teenie pop…

Journey to the End of the Earth – Rancid – This is just the second song I’ve heard by these guys. I dig the lyrics and rambling, conversational vocal delivery.

Same Boy You’ve Always Known – The White Stripes – A super-easy song (except for the intro lick), great for beginners. White Blood Cells is my exercise album right now.

Out on the Weekend – Neil Young – Possibly my favorite song by one of my favorite artists. Every time I hear it I think of a road trip I took across Idaho, Nevada, and California sitting in the flatbed of my college roommate’s Toyota Courier pickup.

Powderfinger – Neil Young – Most people think this is set in the Civil War—powderfinger suggests a musket, and boats don’t deliver the mail anymore. People are shooting people plenty these days, so I reckon it still applies.

Click here to view all 300 of my chord charts.

Have fun!