8 Days a Week guitar TAB How to play 8 days a week by The Beatles

In this guitar lesson you’ll find the 8 Days a week guitar TAB and a full guide on how to play this classic Beatles track. Let’s break the 4th wall. I haven’t actually created the Eat Sleep Guitar Repeat website at the time of writing this. This piece is 1 of 25 or so pieces of written content that I will use to launch the site and it’s definitely not the only Beatles related piece in that batch. The first Beatles piece I wrote for the site was the Come Together TAB and guitar lesson which you can read here. The Beatles were one of the primary reasons why I decided to pick up a guitar in the first place and I remember in those early days searching for simple Beatles songs that I could master with a limited beginner skill set.

8 Days a Week very much fits into that category. It’s a song that can be easily tackled by any intermediate or upper beginner guitarist and it can even present an achievable challenge for the medium beginner. It’s a track that can be primarily performed using the good old DDUUDU strumming pattern and it will push you into using barre chords if you tend not to do so. 8 Days a Week is a lovely little track that’s really fun to play so have fun.

the beatles 8 days a week guitar lesson guitar tab

8 Days a Week guitar TAB lesson and guide

Before we get started with the lesson, here are the chords that you’ll need to know in order to play the song.

8 days a week guitar chords

You can use slightly different chord shapes if you choose. For example, you could swap out the open G for another open G. The G barre chord that you see is to be used in the chorus sections following the Bm chord but again you can choose to bypass that if you wish and just play a normal G but I love how that barre chord sounds.

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8 days a week kicks off by immediately moving away from the chords that I’ve listed above for the intro section of the song. Fortunately I’ve written the TAB below for you. This is one of those introductions that’s instantly recognisable to anyone with at least half a musical brain making this song an ideal pop cover.

8 days a week intro

It can be done differently but that’s how I play it.

After the intro comes the first verse and as I stated earlier, the chords can be performed by using the DDUUDU strumming pattern. There are 4 verses in 8 days a week and the chords never change. Each verse is the same as the last for the guitar so all you need to do is learn the chord progression which you’ll see below.

Verse chords

D / E7 / G / D

D / E7 / G / D

Simple right? The next section is the chorus and once again, the chords do not change throughout the track. Each chorus is performed in the same way until the very last chorus which I’ll get to shortly. You can choose to deviate from the strumming pattern with the chorus which I’ll explain after I’ve shown you the chords themselves.

Chorus chords

Bm / G / Bm / E

D / E7 / G / D

The second half of that section is still performed with the DDUUDU pattern but the first 4 bars can be performed slightly different. All you need to do is play a downward strum twice for each chord following the vocal melody for example hold (Bm) me (Bm) love (G) me (G). You don’t have to go that way if you don’t want to though. If you would prefer to keep strumming then you can do so.

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There’s only a couple more sections to learn for 8 days a week. The bridge and the outro which is merged in partly with the final chorus of the track but first let’s take a look at the bridge.

Once more there’s a move away from the main strumming pattern but only momentarily. Here’s the chords.

8 days a week bridge chords

A / A / Bm / rest

E / E / G / A

The change in the strumming for the bridge comes on that bar of Bm. All that you need to do is one downward strum on that Bm at the start of bar 3 and let it ring out for the rest of that bar and also the following bar. After that, you go back to your strumming.

Finally we’re at the last part which you need to learn and that’s the outro of the track. The outro of 8 days a week is best thought of in 2 parts. The first is a simple extension of the chorus. The chorus ends as we know with D / E7 / G / D. Following the final chorus that leads to the outro, simply perform the G and D bar 3 times instead of once which looks like this.

8 days a week final chorus and part 1 of outro

Bm / G / Bm / E

D / E7 / G / D / G / D / G / D

Immediately after that comes the second part of the outro which is very similar to the intro. If you know the intro then you can probably figure out the outro bit yourself but here’s the TAB anyway.

8 days a week outro part 2

Another thing that you can probably figure out yourself is the structure of the song .You know all of the individual elements now and you’re probably fine putting the pieces together but again, for those who can’t be bothered to do that, here’s the song structure.

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8 Days a Week song structure

Intro / verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / verse / chorus / bridge / verse / chorus / outro

There you have it. That’s the 8 Days a Week guitar TAB and lesson. Like I said earlier, this is a really fun little song to perform. It’s upbeat and bouncy and a real crowd pleaser. It can also be played on either acoustic or electric guitar so it’s pretty versatile too. If you’re on electric just be sure to keep that tone basic. We don’t need distortion here or any fancy effects. Just a nice clean and bright tone will do.

What next?

Looking for more Beatles songs to learn on guitar? Eat Sleep Guitar Repeat has you covered. The site has plenty of Beatles guitar lessons and articles to work through. Take a look at the below and see if anything peaks your interest. 

Can’t Buy Me Love Guitar Chords and Lesson

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9 Of The Best Beatles Guitar Solos

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