10 Classic Rock Songs That Use 3 Chords Or Less
1. La Grange - ZZ Top
There has always been an unspoken rule in rock about everything finding its way back to the blues. No matter what kind of rock music that you try to play, that same down and out spirit that rockers love to soak up is always traced back to the traditional 12 bar stuff that we all knew as kids. Hell, if you've got the blues instilled in your bones though, you sometimes don't even need the other two chords to bring you back home.
For most of La Grange, Billy Gibbons only uses 1 guitar lick to get his point across, just sitting on that open chord and getting as much dirt in his delivery as he can. Considering this song was originally written about a brothel just outside of Texas, that guitar lick practically sets the scene for the seedier side of the tracks, until the rest of the band come in and put a healthy dose of boogie back into the mix.
Even when the song changes to another chord in the solo section, it feels more for the sake of variety than anything else. As Billy plays his guitar until it's pleading for mercy, all we do is go back to that main riff and sit on it to ride out the rest of the song. Rock can get as complex as it wants, but it's not always about how many notes you can play. It's about that bluesy swagger, and everyone in ZZ Top has more swagger in their left hand that most of us will have our entire lives.