Cover Me Up

by Jason Isbell • Lesson #376 • Jul 14, 2021

Hey there, friends! New lesson today for Cover Me Up, a much-requested masterpiece from Jason Isbell (and very recently covered by Morgan Wallen, with much popularity). In my main video, I’ll dive immediately into the main riff that’s heard in the intro, verse, and chorus sections. I’ll tackle it step-by-step, in both standard tuning and Drop-D – which isn’t required, but fills things out quite a bit.

Video timestamps:

  • 0:00 Overview & Lesson Summary
  • 1:53 Intro riff: melody notes & basic timing
  • 3:27 Intro riff: adding basic strums
  • 9:32 Intro riff: adding filler strums
  • 13:49 Playing the riff in Drop D tuning
  • 16:17 Final advice & tips

Print-Friendly Song Sheet 4 pages

Follow along with my print-friendly guide for this song! It’s available for purchase at Musicnotes.com, the web’s leading provider of licensed sheet music.

On the fence? Here's a guide I made showing the purchase & print process, including answers to common questions about my song sheets.

Buy at Musicnotes.com

Save 50% on this song sheet by applying the September 2023 code at Musicnotes checkout: WRKGBMXP7Y (click to copy). Thanks for being a Premium supporter!

Song Notes Premium includes a 50% discount code you can use when buying any of my licensed song sheets. For the current month's code, upgrade to premium or log in.

Play-Along Covers (Two Versions!)

Here’s an additional video, available to members of Song Notes Premium, where I play two different play-through covers (the entire song, beginning to end). In the first playthrough I am in standard tuning, showing you it is indeed possible to play it without going to Drop-D. And then in my second cover, I’ll tune down to Drop-D just to show you how much more “full” that D chord can sound, in context. I also give some additional tips on strumming and approaching the chord progression.

Only available to Premium members

Upgrade to Premium

Additional videos I suggest!

The original version of the song, from Jason Isbell. This is from his 2013 breakthrough album, Southeastern.

Michael Palmisano’s reaction video (hearing it for the first time). Really dig Michael’s channel all-around, and this reaction video is a very good one in particular!

Grady Smith’s discussion around Morgan Wallen’s massively popular cover of this song, and Isbell’s (positive) reaction to it.

Browse Related Lessons

Click any tag below to view other lessons I've made in that category:

About Song Notes

Hey there! My name is David Potsiadlo, and I'm the creator of the 400+ weekly lessons here at Song Notes, going back to 2013. Here’s my guitar story »

Get Free Lessons Each Week!

Join the 20,000+ readers who get my new lessons dropped in their inbox each week. I teach a fun mix of songs, weekly riffs, practice ideas, and more!

Enjoy my lessons? Buy me a beer!

If this and my other lessons have proven helpful to you, please consider making a one-time donation to my tip jar. Contributions of any amount help make this project possible (including the many, many hours I put into it).

Fun & Helpful Tools I've Made

Fret Monster

Interactive fretboard map! See the patterns behind every scale in any key.

View

Capo Captain

An easy way to calculate key & chord combinations, for any capo location!

View

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Be sure to never miss a lesson by subscribing on YouTube. I put out 2-3 new videos every week. These include full song lessons, as well as covers, practice tips, behind-the-scenes updates. Thanks!


Recent Lessons

Browse All Recent Lessons →

Browse All My Lessons

By lesson type

By technique

By musical genre

By decade

By musical key

By popular artist


← back to homepage