10 Classic Rock Songs That Use 3 Chords Or Less

In the years since making it big, Tom Petty always seemed to be a bit in awe of how much his music was able to touch people. From just taking his songs into the studio, most of his fans seem to listen to tracks like Here Comes My Girl or Even the Losers and think that Petty was talking directly to them. Or in the case of Free Fallin, you have a half hour of Tom's life that will be part of rock's legacy until the end of time.

When first getting together to write songs with Jeff Lynne, this was one of the initial beginnings of what became Full Moon Fever, with Petty using just a loop of 3 chords and telling this story of good girls at home with broken hearts while their boyfriends are hanging out in the shadowy side of town. Even though the 3 chords can get boring, what really helps the track evolve over time is Jeff Lynne.

Known more for building records than recording them, Jeff seems to give you another musical highlight every couple minutes, from having the subtle guitar licks that hit just at the right time or when the track comes back down to Earth with the crunchier guitars towards the end of the song. Compared to the rest of Tom's more advanced work, this isn't just a bit of fluff that happened to get chart success. This is the kind of bare bones track that came out and really stopped the clock for a few minutes whenever it came onto the radio.