There’s just something that is pleasing to our ears about those chords and that keeps musicians coming back time and time again. Ultimately it’s pretty simple, this combination of chords works incredibly well together. It’s the relationship between those chords that’s the important bit. Axis of Awesome simply transposed all of the songs so they could play them using the same 4 chords and they’re completely recogniseable. They use the same relationship between chords. Technically all of the songs listed above don’t use the same chords.

Why do so many songs use the same chords? Even just noodling around with those chords for a while you’re likely to find a few new ones. The truth is there are loads more to go at. Ok that might be only 47 and I did say hundreds but Axis Of Awesome had to stop somewhere otherwise their video would have gone on for hours. The Gregory Brothers – “Double Rainbow”.Eminem featuring Rihanna – “Love the Way You Lie”.Timberland featuring OneRepublic – “Apologize”.The Offspring – “You’re Gonna Go Far Kid”.The Smashing Pumpkins – “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”.Kelly Clarkson – “Behind These Hazel Eyes”.Theme from America’s Funniest Home Videos.John Denver – “Take Me Home, Country Roads”.Elton John – “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” (from The Lion King).Here’s the list of songs they manage to get through using just 4 chords… The Song List I was pretty blown away when I first watched that video which I think most people were, hence it’s massive popularity. If you’ve not seen it already (where have you been hiding?) take a few minutes to watch it now. This is probably best shown with the rather brilliant 4 Chords video by Axis Of Awesome. Try some different strumming patterns (get some help with strumming here) with those chords and see if you can hear anything you recognise.

Change the order and you’ll start to recognise even more. Try playing through those chords a few times, almost immediately you’ll start to hear songs you know as you play. In the key of C that gives us C, G, Am and F. If that doesn’t mean much to you, don’t worry.

Well let me start by saying the relationship between the chords is I, V, Vi and IV. I guess the first thing you want to know is what those chords are. If you’d prefer the audio version of this post, you can press the play button above (or subscribe to the podcast here) The Chords (they’re all easy)

4 Why do so many songs use the same chords?.

Free ukulele music with chords