Country music is amongst the most popular genres in the United States and has produced many Grammy award-winning artists. One Country outfit that has been rocking the airwaves since the early 2000s, has been the Zac Brown Band.
Their debut single in 2003, titled Chicken Fried, would be the track that would take them to stardom. However, they needed to wait for five years, after the debut release, for this to happen. In 2008 Chicken Fried was rerecorded for Country radio and went on to become number one on the Billboard Country charts. The catchy lyrics and easy chords have remained popular amongst fans for the past decade.
Due to the fairly easy nature of the song, aspiring guitarists, often seek to learn how to play the song on guitar. The song has an excellent underlying meaning and is just darn right awesome to play. How do you play chicken fried on guitar? Well, fortunately, there are not all that many chords to know from intro to outro, and every verse in between.
The chords
The main chord that you will need to know when playing chicken fried, is the G chord. This features throughout the song, so its best you know how to rock it. The other chords that you will be needing in this song are D and Gsus. This is the perfect song to start learning how to play the guitar. Now that we know what we should be expecting in terms of chords, let us learn how to play chicken fried on guitar.
Verse 1
The first verse of the song starts with the lyrics, “You know I like my chicken fried.” Start by strumming the D chord until the par where it goes to “my chicken,” at this point switch to strumming the G chord. Keep playing the G chord up until you hear the lyrics “Friday night,” at this point turn to the D chord again.
In the next line, you will hear “fit just right,” at this point strum the Gsus chord, until the following line when you hear “radio up,” when you need to switch back to the G chord. Hold the G until hearing the lyrics “beneath the shade,” when you switch to the D chord, very shortly after that be prepared for another chord change on the lyrics “Georgia Pine”, where the C chord comes in.
The next chord you need to change to is the D chord when you hear “that’s home”, followed by the G on “sweet tea,” D on “pecan pie” and bringing in C chord upon hearing “homemade wine.” Stick with a C until the next line, when you need to switch to D on the words “the peaches.”
To round out the last two lines of the first verse, play a combination of G, D, C-D, G, D, Gsus.
The chorus
No hit is complete without a catchy chorus, which chicken fried most certainly has. When it comes time to the chorus, this is how you rock it. The first line is “And a little bit of chicken fried, cold beer on a Friday night.” To play this you need to whip out a chord combo of D, G, D, which will take you into line three, where you need to play a Gsus.
In the fourth line of the chorus, “And the radio up,” play the Gsus chord followed by G-D. Then to complete the chorus like the rockstar you are, play a combination of G on the fifth line of the chorus, D on the sixth line, followed by the Gsus and G-D chords on the final line of the chorus.
Verse 2
The second verse kicks off with “well it’s funny”, where you need to lead with a G, then switch to D, C and back to D in the first line of the verse. Repeat this structure in the second and third lines of this verse, which begin with “not where you live” and “there’s no dollar sign” respectively.
The lyrics of the fourth line of this verse are “so if you agree, have a drink with me.” This line requires you to play a combination of chord G and then D. In the final line of this verse, where reads “raise your glass for a toast,” play the C chord followed by the D.
Congratulations you are midway through knowing how to play chicken fried on guitar.
Second chorus
Unlike the chords you learnt to play in the first chorus, these differ slightly. The first line only requires you to play the G chord, then the D when the lyrics are “Friday night” switching to Gsus when you hear “fit just.” When you hear the lyrics “radio up” play Gsus followed by G-D, then repeat the sequence for the rest of the chorus.
Verse 3
The final verse begins with “I thank God for my life.” Lead with the D and switch to G, then back to D for the second line. The third line starts with “may freedom forever fly.” Start the line playing the C chord and end it off with G-D. Finish off the third verse with a combo of G, D, C, G-D
For the third chorus repeat the chords which we learnt for the second chorus.
Outro
In the outro, you will hear “getcha little chicken fried.” Strum the G chord before switching to the D chord for the next line. In the third line of the outro, get ready to play the Gsus chord when you hear “jeans that fit just right.” Repeat Gsus followed by G-D. Switch back to G in the line that ends with the lyrics “seen the sunrise.” Next, follow it up with a D and a Gsus, finally ending your training of chicken fried with a G-D chord.
Now that you have learnt the very basic chords from chicken fried, you should have no problem rocking out this classic country banger on your guitar. It may not be the hardest song you will ever learn, but it is fun, catchy and has a great meaning behind it. All that is left to do is to take your training, put it into practice and start playing chicken fried on guitar, whenever you have the chance.
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