Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
shows a softer side of Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong than the punk anthems he is known for. The band’s producer, Rob Cavallo, had the great idea to add a string arrangement which adds a great Beatles-like dynamic to the track. Often referred to as Time of Your Life,
it was an international hit and even had success in the Country charts. It’s an easy guitar song to play that’s popular at high school graduations, reunions, funerals and other events where people like to reflect on their experiences.
- Listen to the music video above so that you remember how it
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
goes. - Then grab the guitar chords for Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) and lyrics. The song basically only uses G, C, D and Em, which are easy beginner guitar chords. Note that you can also use a Cadd9 and Dsus4 in the beginning to make it sound more like the recording. Simply substitute these for wherever you see a C and D chord in the music. Also if you need it, here’s a lesson on how to read guitar chords.
- Watch the video below to see how to play the chords and chord progression. It is good to use a metronome (as found in the eMedia Guitar Toolkit) to help you keep a steady tempo.
Watch this video from eMedia Interactive Rock Guitar, which uses the eMedia Animated Fretboard to make it even easier for you to see how to change between the D and G chords.
eMedia Interactive Rock Guitar also helps you master common guitar techniques like palm muting and barre chords, which are used in the middle section of Free Fallin’ and in many other rock, pop and country songs. It also includes Jam tracks to help you learn lead guitar and other great guitar songs like Tired of Waiting for You
and You Really Got Me
(Kinks), All Right Now
(Free) and others.