I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio

I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio can be an amazing first song to learn and play along with, which is a great way to make changing chords, staying in time and strumming more fun! And of course, you can learn the more advanced option when you’re ready, or jump straight into it if you feel like it. We’ll also look at the solo at the end!

Beginner level: Intro and Verse

If you’re an early beginner, some open chord shapes can be very challenging, so we’re going to simplify them! Instead of playing A, C and G, we’re going to play Asus2, Cmaj7 and G6. I know the names of the substitute chords we’re going for sound a bit wild, but you’ll see that the shapes are way easier to play!

Let’s now look at the rhythm. We’re going to strum a pretty universal pattern that looks like this:

And in terms of structure, the intro and the verses follow the same progression, so we’re going to play Asus2 for two bars, Cmaj7 for a bar, and G6 for a bar! We’re going to play this progression twice in the intro, and twice in each verse:

Beginner level: The Chorus

On the chorus, we only need one new chord, which is D. We’ve already seen all the other chords we’ll need!

The chorus is built around two different parts. The first half is D for a bar, Cmaj7 for a bar, and G6 for two bars, and we’re going to repeat that twice. The other half of the chorus is the same as the verse we’ve just covered in the intro and verse section!

And in terms of strumming patterns, you can play the same pattern we’ve used for the intro and verse, so once you’re confident with the verse and the chorus, try to listen to the song and see if you can spot these different parts! And of course, feel free to start playing along when you feel ready.

Beginner level: Other sections

We have a couple of extra sections to look into. The first one is the guitar solo, where the chord progression is the same as the first half of the chorus we’ve just covered.

And then, we have a middle 8 section, with a new chord to play: E minor! The structure of this middle 8 is pretty easy, as we’re playing E minor for a bar, followed by Asus2 for a bar. We’re going to repeat that three times before playing G6 for two bars, and we’re done!

The Stereophonics’ Intro and Verse

Now that we’ve covered how to play the song at a beginner level, let’s see how the Stereophonics play it! Let’s start with the intro and the verse. The fundamental chord structure is the same as what we’ve seen before. We’re still playing Asus2, Cmaj7 and G6, but the strumming pattern is a bit more complex.

On Asus2, we’re still playing two bars, but rather than repeating the same pattern twice, we’re going to play two different patterns back to back. The first pattern is new, but the second one is the same universal pattern we’ve seen before.

On the first bar, we want to sound very dynamic, so remember to give beat 2 a big strum! We’ll then play the same pattern that we’ve played on the first bar of Asus2, Cmaj7 and G6.

That rhythm can be played pretty much throughout the entire song. Every time you’re playing a chord for two bars, you can play the two patterns we’ve seen for Asus2 above.

The Stereophonics’ Chorus

To play the accurate version of the chorus, we’re now going to move away from the “easy” shapes you may have seen at the beginning of this lesson, and we’re going to need D, C, G and A.

And the structure is similar to what we’ve seen before, but we’re now using these major chords instead:

We’re going to apply the same pattern we’ve seen in the verse (with the big strum on beat 2) to D, C and the first bar of G. On the second bar of G, we’re going to add a bass line to our G chord and go from G to G/F#, back to G and then G/A.

Just note that we’re not playing this bass line again! Instead, the second time we play G, try to match the drums to get into the next A that follows. No need to be precise here, the idea is to be dynamic and fill the space!

Let’s move on to our next chord. We’re going to play A for two bars, and the idea is to create a build up to the C that follows with the pattern below. We’re playing over two bars, so again, we’re going to play two different patterns back to back.

The Stereophonics’ Solo

The solo was recorded using a slide guitar, but we can find a manageable way of playing it using box 1 of the D major pentatonic. It’s a very melodic solo that I really encourage you to learn!

We have three phrases to learn, and the first two are played using only the notes of box 1:

The third and last phrase is a very cool slide, starting on the 7th fret and sliding up to fret 12 on the high E string.

Remember to sing the solo. Using your ears at this level is extremely important, and will help you internalise the melody we’re playing!