Traditional · Key of A · Public domain
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This chart is written in A. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in A with different chord shapes, play it capo 2 with the G shapes, or capo 5 with the E shapes, or capo 7 with the D shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
The earliest printing of this song is a six-song booklet called Songs Sung by R. D. Burnett, The Blind Man, Monticello, Kentucky, dated 1913. Dick Burnett, a fiddler and banjo player born near Monticello in 1883, had been blinded in 1907 when a robber's gun went off in his face, and he sold the booklet on the street while he busked for coins. He titled the song Farewell Song, and the second verse is about himself: six years blind, no parents, bound to ramble. Asked late in life whether he had written it, Burnett said he thought he "got the ballad from somebody" and could not say more, so it is treated as traditional. His friend Emry Arthur recorded it in 1928 under the title I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, and that is the name that stuck.
The Stanley Brothers learned it from their father and recorded it in Nashville in November 1950, changing a few lines, dropping a verse, and adding the high lonesome harmony that every later version copies. Bob Dylan cut it on his first album in 1962, and in 2000 it carried the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where Dan Tyminski's vocal (mimed on screen by George Clooney) won a Grammy and made the song a hit all over again, 87 years after Burnett printed it. This chart uses Burnett's 1913 words, which, along with the melody, are in the public domain.
Three chords in A: A, D and E7, and every verse is the same shape played twice. Count a steady 4/4 with a bass note on one and three, the bluegrass boom-chuck. Hold A for two full bars while you sing "I am a man of constant", change to D on "sorrow", then E7 lands on "trouble" and A comes back on "days." That is the whole song, so once the second line feels natural you can look up and watch the room. Keep it slow and let the E7 hang for its full two bars; the pull from E7 back to A is where the sorrow lives. With a group, have everyone sing the verses in unison and let one high voice float a harmony on the last line of each verse, the way the Stanleys did. If A sits high for your singers, the key of G is one tap away.
Tap any chord for its diagram, other voicings, and the notes inside it.
Another lonesome Appalachian song: In the Pines chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: Man of Constant Sorrow (Wikipedia)
