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Day Tripper is one of my favorite songs of The Beatles and one of my favorite guitar riff as well. It has a very catchy and well known riff used in the intro and verses.

Riffs are just part of the song, and they’re often the catchiest, most recognizable part of a song.

This is main repeating riff to “day tripper”, and if you listen to the song you’ll notice that to play the next riff all you have to do is move the entire riff, the entire structure, up one string so that it starts on the A string instead of the E string.

When this song was released as a vinyl 45, it was a double A side with “We can work it out”

How to Play Day Tripper

Below is the chords of the song that we will try to play. It uses chords E7, A7, F#, G7, C# and B major.

The song is fairly simple as it only have eight and quarter notes.

The explanations that follows are based on the tab you see on the left. It far better see/hear it in action that to read. 

The E7 Riff

The riff begins with the E7 chord with the root note on the open E string.

The riff then goes: 3rd fret, 4rth fret of the 6th string.

This follows by the B note, that is the second fret of the 5th string until it reached the next octave of the E note. That note is in the second fret of the fourth string.

Final note is the open D for the first bar of the song/intro.

To complete the first part of the riff, the second bar starts with the B note, on the second fret of the 5th string. The next note is the F# note on the fourth fret of the D string (4rth String).

It then goes back to the B note (second fret of the B string) and then open D string followed by the E note by pressing the second fret of the 4rth string.

DAY TRIPPER
Beatles

riff 1: riff 2:
|—————————– |—————————-
|—————————– |—————————-
|—————————– |———–2-0—–4—-0-2-
|———–2—0—4—0-2— |———2——-2—-2—–
|———2——-2—2——- |-0—3-4——————–
|-0—3-4——————— |—————————-

play riff 1 2x, then riff 1 once, then riff 2 once

E7
Got a good reason, for taking the easy way out
A7 E7
Got a good reason, for taking the easy way out
F#
She was a day____ tripper, one way ticket yeah
A7 G#7 C# B
It took me so____ long to find out, and I found out

She’s a big teaser, she took me half the way there
She’s a big teaser, she took me half the way there
She’s a day tripper, one way ticket, yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out

Tried to please her, but she only played one night stands
Tried to please her, but she only played one night stands
She was a day tripper, Sunday driver, yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out