Have I told You Lately - Van Morrison / Rod Stewart

Greetings again everyone. Not much posting recently I am afraid but here's a nice ballad originally written by Van Morrison but covered most successfully by Rod Stewart. The original is in Bb so I have decided to bung a capo on the third fret and play it in G as this is a much more guitar freindly key.

A few tips as usual to help you along the way....

chords
G 320003
Bm7 x20202
Cmaj7 x32000
C/D xx0010
Am7 x02010
G/B x20030

Timing
Very important with this song! Its in 4/4 time, so 4 beats to the bar, count in your head 1,2,3,4 etc. However most bars of the song are split in two with a chord change in the middle. There's also a few bars at the end of the verses where you have another pattern. Given all this, I think its best to take you through playing the intro,a verse and chorus once, just to explain the timing.

Strumming Patterns etc.
Hmmm. Experiment! In all honesty I mainly finger pick this, there's plenty of room to play around with this song, its nice and slow paced so treat it as one to try and find your own way of playing it. I am sure someone (Matteo perhaps you could contribute a pattern for this?) who will suggest a nice pattern for it.

Ok let's plunge straight into the intro. Don't forget to capo at third fret to sound like the original.

Intro
Hold all the chords for two beats! So count one two(change) three four (change) and so on

the chord progression for the intro is like this:

G Bm7 / Cmaj7 C/D / G Bm7 / C C/D

On the last C/D you start to sing "Have I.."

Pretty simple yeah?

Into Verse one. Again I am going to give you the number of beats that you play, the tab for the whole song at the bottom will them make a whole lot more sense, I hope! Slashed show the breaks between the bars (obviously ignore this on the C/D chord as this is a slash chord!). So G 2 Bm7 2 means play G for 2 beats, then Bm7 for two beats - hope this is clear.

G 2 Bm7 2 / C 2 C/D 2 "told you.."
G 2 Bm7 2 / C 2 C/D 2 "told you.."
Cmaj7 4 / Bm7 4 "fill me heart.."
Am7 2 C/D 2 / G 2 C/D 2 "ease my.."

G 2 Bm7 2 / C2 C/D 2 "morning sun.."
G 2 Bm7 2 / C2 C/D 2 "day with..."
Cmaj7 4 / Bm7 4 "fill my heart.."
Am7 2 C/D 2 / G 2 Am7 1 G/B 1 "ease my"

The trickiest part here is the very last line , where you end with G for 2 beats, Am7 for 1 and G/B for one, but it isn't hard if you practice where to get your fretting fingers in place a few times.

This little turnaround also repeats later in the song in the bit where the lyric is "like the sun". You play a Bm7 for 4 beats, then a further two beats, change to Am7 for one beat and back to Bm7 for the final beat. Its not nearly as hard as it sounds though!!

I am keeping this one short and sweet, have fun working on this song, your girlfreind / wife will thank you for it i am sure :lol:

Anyway here's the whole thing:

Intro
G Bm7 / Cmaj7 C/D / G Bm7 / C C/D
Have I
G Bm7 C C/D
told you lately that I love you Have I
G Bm7 C C/d
told you there's no one else above you
Cmaj7
Fill my heart with gladness
Bm7
Take away my sadness
Am7 C/D G C/D
Ease my troubles, that's what you do oh the

all the best, enjoy

Matt