I'll Be Home For Christmas - Sing-A-Longby Neil Hogan

I’ll Be Home For Christmas was written in 1943 and became a Christmas classic in a very short time. It has been recorded by dozens, if not hundreds of artists over the years. This lesson goes over the chord progression and a way to play it to accompany singers. It is loosely based on the way Elvis Presley did it in 1957.

Like many songs from the Tin Pan Alley era of songwriting, it includes many colorful chords, particularly diminished sevenths. The lesson covers a few different ways of playing them, as well as little theory breakdown of the interval of a sixth and how the intro uses a descending line of parallel sixths. There are also quite a few barre chords involved.

The song is done in the key of A Major, which can be capoed to the first fret to match Elvis’ original in the key of Bb.