She Talks To Angels Chords – How To Play This Black Crowes Ballad

Let’s dive into one of the Black Crowes’ best rock ballads and learn how to play the She Talks To Angels chords!

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In this free lesson you will learn…

• How to play “She Talks To Angels” by the Black Crowes
• Three new beginner guitar chords
• Tips for smoother chord transitions
• How to keep a loose strumming hand
• What “call and response” is and how it works for this song.

The Black Crowes’ She Talks To Angels Chords Are Easy To Play!

If you want to talk about the epitome of “modern-sounding classic rock music,” look no further than The Black Crowes.

This band’s sound is massive and incredibly powerful, and their music is as captivating as it is groove-inducing.

The Black Crowes are no strangers to hard-hitting rock tunes, but they also know their way around ballads in a big way.

Today, we’re going to explore their classic She Talks To Angels chords to see what beautiful progressions and patterns lie beneath.

The She Talks To Angels Chords rotate quickly throughout this song, so we’re going to need to pay close attention to what’s going on in the song or we’ll get lost easily.

The major takeaways from this lesson will be the ability to change chords more easily, as well as a smart approach to barre chords and strumming.

We’re going to pack as much teachable content into this lesson as we can, but first let’s discuss a bit about the song and the She Talks To Angels chords themselves, shall we?

A Brief History Lesson

This song was released as the fourth single off of the Black Crowes’ 1990 album “Shake Your Money Maker” to much acclaim.

The Black Crowes were known for being a hard-rocking group of musicians, so the She Talks To Angels chords spoke to their listeners in a unique way by comparison to some of their other well-known songs.

This song was inspired by a “goth girl” that vocalist Chris Robinson had encountered and was moved by.

This acoustic rock tune made its way to #30 on the US Hot 100, and #70 on the UK Singles Chart.

Before we get into how to play the song in full, let’s unpack the She Talks To Angels chords individually for a better understanding of how they work.

Let’s Look At All Of The She Talks To Angels Chords Up-Close

We’ve got three main chords to deal with in this tune, and none of them are barre chords (thankfully).

We’re going to use a capo at the second fret for the She Talks to Angels chords, and we’re going to use a very loose strumming hand to hit the chords with.

The three chords that we’ll be playing with today are:

D Major

G Major

A Major

If you’re unfamiliar with these chords, don’t worry – we’re going to unpack each of them below in a mini-tutorial.

First off, take a look at the chord boxes below to see what these chords look like:

D MAJOR

The D major chord is the easiest of the bunch in our opinion, and is thankfully the first of the She Talks to Angels chords.

Keep your D string open and don’t bother with the E and A strings, you won’t need them.

Use your index finger at the second fret on the G string, your ring finger at the third fret on the B, and your middle finger at the second fret on the high E string.

Strum through all four strings together, and watch for any accidental string muting (especially from the ring finger).

G MAJOR

 

The G major chord uses all six strings and is a breeze. Simply use your first two fingers on the A and E strings respectively, and your ring and pinky on the B and high E strings. Check the chord diagrams above or below and give it a shot!

The final chord that we need to practice is the A major chord, and it asks us to squish our fingers together a little more while maintaining open strings.

Add your index, middle and ring fingers to the second fret on the D, G and B strings in order and keep the A and high E strings open.

Pro Tip: If it helps, you can use arpeggios to sound out the She Talks To Angels chords more evenly in order to get a better feel for the sound of each.

 A MAJOR

She Talks To Angels Chords I: How To Play Harmonics

If you’ve listened to this song a few times already, you’ll know for sure that the guitarist is playing something in between the chords that sounds a little bit out-of-the-ordinary.

These are called natural harmonics, and the concept is super simple:

These are notes that exist on the wire of the frets instead of the fretboard. The sweet spots for these notes can be found at the fifth, seventh and twelfth frets of the guitar (without a capo).

If we play a natural harmonic at the fifth or twelfth frets, the notes produced will be the same as the notes in the open position.

Playing a natural harmonic at the seventh fret will produce the notes that could also be played at that fret.

But there’s more to it than that.

D MAJOR

To play a natural harmonic, place your finger on the string (or strings) you want to play on, but don’t press down on the string.

Instead, hover your finger over the fret wire so that it touches the string but does not push on it, and pluck the string.

Once the string is plucked, pull your finger away from the string to let the natural harmonic resonate.

With the She Talks To Angels chords, the guitarist plays the first set of harmonics across all six strings at the twelfth fret, followed by the seventh fret.

Give it a shot, then let’s move on to discuss the chord progression.

G MAJOR

A MAJOR

She Talks To Angels Chords II: The Progressions

This song is written in a way that we absolutely love – using a call-and-response-type structure to have the guitarist better support the vocalist.

Let us explain how this works:

There are two main progressions for the She Talks To Angels chords:

The first one plays against the vocalist, before and after he sings the verses.

The second progression is the one the vocalist sings directly over in the chorus.

You will notice in the verses that the vocalist will sing a line of music that will immediately be followed by the main chord progression.

This progression has a bit of a melodic “hook” to it that serves as a call to the vocalist, allowing him to “ping pong” back and forth with the guitarist.

The first chord progression is simple enough. Check it out in full below:

D / D / G / D / G / D

This progression plays through the verse, and is the only progression for the She Talks To Angels chords that you’ll have to worry about in this section.

At the end of the first verse, we see a new second progression develop:

A / G / D / D / G / D / G / D

Notice how this new progression adds the A and G major chords on the front end of the original progression?

This is a great way to repurpose a set of chords without moving to something that’s drastically different in a melodic sense.

For now, let’s just practice the changes from one chord to the next – we’ll put more of this together further down in the lesson.

She Talks To Angels Chords III: Strumming Patterns

Remember when we said we wanted you to keep an open strumming hand through this tune?

Listen back to the song and you’ll realize why.

The song itself is very loose in the way that it’s played. There are no “tight” rhythms happening in the strumming hand, just a few open strums on each chord.

Let’s look at the best way to count and strum through the She Talks To Angels chords below, using the intro as an example:

D      D       G D  G D  –

1       2       3       4       1       2       3       4

D      DDU D U   D U   D      D       D  D  U  D

Pro Tip: Listen carefully to the guitarist’s strumming – note how relaxed it is.

The She Talks To Angels chords are a great example of how we really don’t have to complicate things in music, and how easy it is to string a few chords together for a very memorable tune.

We have a grand total of three chords in this whole song, but the way they are played makes for a flowy and easy-to-play chord progression.

Sometimes, simpler really is better.

Now that we’ve learned the She Talks To Angels chords and how to strum them, let’s take a brief look at the lyrics and where the chords interact with them before we sign off.

She Talks To Angels Chords IV: Putting It All Together

We’ve finally got all of our essential parts put together, and we know what we’re doing with this tune.

Time to start practicing the song all together.

A big part of learning this song is learning where the She Talks To Angels chords are placed, and we’ve already done that with the intro and verse chords.

Simply put, you should aim to begin the verse chords on the last word of each verse phrase.

The chorus and bridge sections function a little bit differently, however.

Let’s take a look at them below, along with the lyrics themselves.

Chorus:

A         G

“says she talks to angels

 

D D G D G D

they call her out by her name

 

A     G

oh yeah, she talks to angels

 

D D G D G D

says they call her out by her name”

Bridge:

 

G                            D

she don’t know no lover

 

G                       D

none that I ever seen

 

G                            D

yet to her that ain’t nothing

 

G                                 D     D D G D G D

but to me it means, it means everything

 

D G D G D

Pro Tip: Work slowly through each section of the She Talks To Angels chords in order to best figure out how they fit together.

If you’re finding the leap between D and G to be a bit much, simply add your pinky finger at the 3rd fret of the high E string on the D major chord and remove your index finger from the G string to imply the same notes as G major.

Now that we’ve ironed out all of the details of the She Talks To Angels chords, we’ve got some tips to help you make the most out of your practice time with it.

She Talks To Angels Chords V: How To Smooth Out Your Chord Changes

Playing chords one-by-one is easy enough, but stringing them together in a smooth way can be a more challenging task.

Here are some awesome tips that will help you keep your chord changes smooth:

• Practice the She Talks To Angels chords in pairs! Focusing on chords two at a time means you can learn how to pivot back and forth between them effectively. All things in music take practice to perfect, so give this the time it deserves and you’ll see the results you want.

• Use arpeggios to help make sense of chords that you find to be challenging. By playing arpeggios instead of strumming all at once, we can find problem areas that need work such as muted or dead strings.
• Slow down to make transitions between chords easier. Not everything has to be played at full speed right away! Taking your time means that your brain has more time to map out the best way to approach each chord effectively.
• Listen to the song! The She Talks To Angels Chords are played quite clearly in this song. This makes them easy to pick out, and easy to spot the melodic differences in each chord.

The best way to attack any song is by listening to it repeatedly until the parts of it all stick together in your head and hands.

Why You Should Include A Metronome In Your Practice

The She Talks To Angels chords are easy enough to play, as you’ve seen.

What’s more difficult is keeping those chords tight together, and a metronome can be a huge help for this.

Metronomes are often associated with lead guitar practice, but they help us immensely with our rhythm as well.

We highly recommend that you use a metronome with this tune to help you experiment with more tightness in your strumming.

If you don’t have one of your own, you can always find one for free right here.

Recommended Resources

If you loved this lesson on the Black Crowes’ She Talks To Angels chords, you’ll love the other song lessons we’ve got for you below:

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