Traditional Bahamian · Key of G · Public domain
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This chart is written in G. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in G with different chord shapes, play it capo 3 with the E shapes, or capo 5 with the D shapes, or capo 7 with the C shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
Sloop John B is a folk song from Nassau in the Bahamas, and for its first few decades it was called The John B. Sails. The English writer Richard Le Gallienne heard it there and printed five verses in Harper's Monthly Magazine in December 1916, calling it the best known of the local songs. In 1927 Carl Sandburg put three of the verses, with the tune, into The American Songbag. He had the song from the Chicago cartoonist John T. McCutcheon and his wife Evelyn, who learned it on their island in the Bahamas and told him it had "almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau." By then the John B itself was a wreck: McCutcheon wrote that its ribs lay in the sand at Governor's Harbour, and that in 1926 he had a knee and a ring-bolt dug out of it and built into the watch tower on his island.
The song went into the folk revival through the Weavers in 1950 and the Kingston Trio in 1958, who called it The Wreck of the John B. Al Jardine of the Beach Boys loved the Kingston Trio record and played it for Brian Wilson in 1965, adding a few minor chords because, in his words, the original was "basically a three-chord song." Wilson's arrangement, with its marching-band instruments and the a cappella break, came out on Pet Sounds in 1966 and reached number three in America and number two in Britain. This chart goes back behind all of that to the words Sandburg printed in 1927, which are in the public domain along with the melody. The Beach Boys' rewritten lyric is not, so you will not find "Sheriff John Stone" here.
Three chords in 4/4: G, C and D, with a D7 at the final cadence of every verse. The chorus uses the same tune and the same changes as the verse, so there is only one progression to learn. The first two lines sit on G. The D arrives on the last word of the third line ("roam," "home," "away," "corn") and rings through the pause that follows, which is the moment the whole room tends to join in. Line four starts on G and moves to C on "got in a fight" or "let me go home," and the last line walks G, D7, G. A steady bass-strum pattern suits the 1927 words; if you want the Beach Boys lift, add an Am after each C and push the strum into straight eighth notes. Sing the verses one at a time and let everyone take the chorus.
Tap any chord for its diagram, other voicings, and the notes inside it.
Another song of the water: Shenandoah chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: Sloop John B (Wikipedia)
