Country Roads is one of John Denver’s biggest hits, and is just so much fun to play on the ukulele! Let’s begin…
Written by John Allnutt / Published December 29, 2023
Last updated: April 17, 2025
Today, I’m going to be showing you how to play the song Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver. This is an incredibly fun and popular country/folk hit that is just begging to be played on a ukulele (or banjolele in this case!)
About This Country Roads Ukulele Tutorial…
If you’re a beginner or beginner/intermediate player you’ll find that strumming this song is pretty easy. There aren’t that many syncopated rhythms. But, you may have to work on switching between chords, especially if you haven’t played some of these chords before.
I’ve chosen to teach this song in the original key, which is the key of A major.
I’m actually going to play this song using a banjolele instead of a ukulele. This may make it sound a little bit more folky than a ukulele, which I thought would be nice.
You can read more about what a banjolele is here. It uses the same tuning as what you have on your ukulele (G,C,E,A) albeit with a low G.
Country Roads Ukulele Chords
A Chord
So, our first chord in the song is A. That is fret 2, fret 1, fret 0, fret 0. So, it sounds a little bit like this. In the original song, there would be some sort of solo in the intro.
The A chord leads us into the first verse with, [A] Almost Heaven.
F# Minor Chord
Our next chord is F# minor. Okay, F# minor is really easy to get to from A. You’re just going to add a ring finger on fret 2.
So, from the ceiling to the floor, my chord is now 2-1-2-0, and I’m referring to the fret number there. So, fret 2 under my nose, fret 1, fret 2, and fret 0.
E Chord Alternative: E7 Chord
Now, the E chord is notoriously difficult on the ukulele. However, it does work out in this song that we can play an E7 instead.
So let’s make an E7. If you’ve seen some of my other tutorials, we have done this chord before. But if this is your first, please read on.
Let’s start from the very first fret under your nose – fret 1 with your index finger. You’re then going to go to fret 2 on the next string with your middle finger, fret 0 (no fingers), and then, fret 2 with your ring finger. It sounds a little bit like this.
D Chord
Our next chord is a D chord, and that is just 2-2-2-0 on the lyrics [D]Shenandoah River.
You can make that a few different ways. You could use your pointer finger, then middle finger, then ring finger. That works pretty well if you’re using a tenor-size ukulele, or if you’ve got small fingers. You might be able to squeeze that in on a concert size.
Another way that you can do that is to use your middle finger, ring finger, or pinky. I prefer that method because it frees up your pointer finger, and it makes it a little bit easier to squeeze all those fingers in because your pinky is the smallest.
Now, if you’re a little bit flexible or double-jointed, I guess you’d say, you can also just flatten that finger across the top three strings underneath your nose. So, I’m barring fret 2, 2, 2, and then, I’m leaving the A string open. So, that’s another way that you could play your D chord.
I prefer that one if I can make it sound good because it’s so easy to get there quickly. Plus I don’t have to look down, and make sure that I’m hitting the right notes of the right chord.
Strumming Pattern
For the verses, we are just playing quarter notes. That is:
1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
When you get to the choruses of the song, instead of continuing that strumming pattern, I would suggest trying to do a bit of a faster strum if you can using eighth notes. That strum would be down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up.
So, you hear a little bit more forward motion with it, and everybody knows the chorus of the song. If you do that on the verses, if you were to strum fast on the verses, the strumming could get in the way of the words a little bit because you generally only sing each verse once in this song before we move on to the next thing.
So, you’re telling the story when you get to the chorus. You can have a little bit more forward motion. It sounds like we’re actually traveling down that road – that country road.
Country Roads Tutorial
Verse
So, I’m not going to work on this section very long with you, but I do want to go over these transitions on the very first part of this first verse.
Generally, we’re going to have about eight strums per chord. It’s going to go like this.
[A] Almost heaven,
[F#m] West Virginia,
[E7] Blue Ridge mountains,
[D] Shenandoah [A] River
All right, let’s pause for a second. So, I said, generally, there are eight strums each. The D on Shenandoah is only four.
The next line uses the same chord sequence that we just played. So, let’s go through it.
[A] Life is old there,
[F#m] Older than the trees,
[E7] Younger than the mountains,
[D] Blowing like a breeze.
[A] Country Roads…
Chorus
The chord sequence here is A, E7, F#m, and D. So, it’s kind of just a repeating the chord progression of the verse. The only change is the order of the chords in the second half of the chorus.
[D] West Virginia,
[E7] Mountain Mama,
[D] Take me home,
[F#m] Country Roads.
Adding a Bit of Ukulele Flair – Hammer On
I have a fun little tip for you if you’d like to try it out. Remember that an A chord is 2, 1, 0, 0. Sometimes, when you’re not singing, you can simply lift off your pointer finger to make A minor and then press your finger down again to resolve it back to A major.
What you’re doing is something called a “hammer on”. You hammer on that note with your pointer finger. You just do it hard enough where you can get the note to speak out without having to strum it. So I’ll show you how to do it here.
It’s a fun little trick that you can use to spice up your playing.
Playing the Bridge Section
Let’s take a look at the next section. This starts with the lyrics, I hear her voice. We start here with an F minor.
[F#m] I hear her
[E7] voice in the morning hour,
[A] she calls me,
[D] the radio,
[A] reminds me of
[E7] my home far away
[F#m] and driving down that
[G] road I get a
[D] feeling that I
[A] should have been home
[E7] yesterday, yesterday,
[A] Country Roads
And after this line of music, you are going to pause a little bit for dramatic effect. Yesterday… pause, Country roads…
Another note here on the bridge is that it seems like it moves faster because the chords only get strummed four times each.
Outro
Guess what? We just do the chorus twice at the end of the song for the finale. So, definitely, one of the more simple songs that we have.
So, I hope you enjoy playing along with me on this one. I’m going to do a run-through of this with you real quick, and then, we’ll wrap up. So to hear it, click here.
Parting Words
Thanks for joining me in learning how to play this absolute classic of a song. If you have any particular songs in mind that you’d want us to cover, or any ukulele-related topics for that matter, just leave a comment below. For now though, enjoy strumming ‘Country Roads’ on your ukulele!
John Allnutt
Writer & Ukulele TeacherJohn has been teaching music since 2008 and resides in Richmond, Kentucky with his wife Laura and dog Sam. In his spare time he enjoys growing and cooking food, roasting coffee, playing board games, and spreading joy through playing and teaching music.
