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Home ❯ Songs ❯ Ed Sheeran ❯

Candle in the Wind

by Ed Sheeran • Lesson #143 • Apr 15, 2018

About this lesson

In this video I’ll teach you how to play Candle in the Wind, the classic Elton John song as covered by Ed Sheeran. I’ll include chords, strumming pattern, and some simplified chord voicings to easily enable you to play this very similar to the way Ed Sheeran does. I hope you enjoy!

Capo notes

Ed Sheeran plays this capo 2, in drop D tuning, using versions of D-G-A. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to teach this with a capo 4 and use simple versions of C-F-G. I believe this is a much more approachable version to playing this song, while still retaining the sound of Ed Sheeran’s version.

Chords needed

In this lesson, I suggest using these 4-string versions of each of these chords:

E –––––––––––––––––––––––
B –––1––––1––––0––––1––––
G –––0––––2––––0––––2––––
D –––2––––3––––0––––2––––
A –––3––––3––––2––––0––––
E –––––––––––––––––––––––
     C   F/C  G/B   Am

Of course, the normal way to play these same chords is as follows. Use these full versions as you see fit and desire.

E –––0––––1––––3––––0––––
B –––1––––1––––0––––1––––
G –––0––––2––––0––––2––––
D –––2––––3––––0––––2––––
A –––3––––3––––2––––0––––
E ––––––––1––––3–––––––––
     C    F    G    Am

Strumming pattern

    >       >
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D   D   D U D U

Chorus walkdown

E –––––––      ––––––––––––––––––      –––––––––
B –––1–––      ––––––––––––––––––      ––––1––––
G –––2–––      ––––2––––0––––0–––      ––––0––––
D –––3–––  ->  ––––3––––2––––0–––  ->  ––––2––––
A –––3–––      ––––––––––––––––––      ––––3––––
E –––––––      ––––––––––––––––––      –––––––––
     F             (walk down)             C

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