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Welcome to Paradise

by Green Day • Lesson #322 • Sep 17, 2020

Video lesson

Licensed Song Sheet 2 pages

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Editor’s notes

Hey friends! Here’s a new lesson where I’ll show you a Tyler Childers-inspired arrangement of Green Day’s 1990s classic Welcome to Paradise (via their album “Dookie”). This one takes the raw, backwoods-style acoustic country sound (of Tyler Childers, but also artists like Steve Earle via Copperhead Road) and imagines how that type of guitar playing might be applied to a pop-punk song. The result is what’s in this lesson, and I hope you enjoy!

From a guitar POV, the heart of this arrangement is based on a D-riff (which can be played in Drop-D tuning), similar to that used in Tyler Childers’ Feathered Indians and Whitehouse Road – and also Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road. This results in a droning, raw sound (lots of open D-string) with occasional flourish via reaching your pinky. I also use an occasional A-riff (via hammering-on the 5th string) for added acoustic flourish. I show it all in my video lesson, with tabs!

Timestamps for this video:

  • 0:00 Playthrough & lesson overview
  • 2:38 Intro D-riff (4 measures w/ tab)
  • 11:05 Chord & strumming (verse & chorus)
  • 13:41 A-riff during the verse
  • 14:39 D-riff during the verse
  • 15:22 Chorus melody riff (w/ tab)

If you dig this style of playing, here’s related lessons I’ve made – all of these being in the key of D and having a similar outlaw country-ish sound. PDFs for each of these are available via the links below:

There’s also these technique videos I’ve made, which may be helpful for this particular song:

Audio of me playing this song

Here’s audio of me playing it:

Green Day’s version of this song

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