Country Honk

by The Rolling Stones • Lesson #539 • Feb 8, 2024

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you to play Country Honk by The Rolling Stones, from their 1969 album Let It Bleed. This song is effectively an acoustic & countrified version of the more familiar Honky Tonk Women — featuring the same chords, progression, and (mostly) identical lyrics.

I’ll start with the basics, showing you the verse & chorus progressions along with a few strumming options. From there, I’ll walk through a few of the more iconic riffs heard in this song – including the rolling bassline riff played by Keith Richards during the intro, verse, and instrumental sections. This one is quite manageable to get started with, while offering plenty trickier bits for you to bake into your practice routine. Let’s get into it!

0:00 Lesson Summary
1:04 Chords Used
2:20 Verse & Chorus
4:10 Strumming Options
7:54 Main “G” Riff
15:26 Bassline Riff
21:08 Add’l Riffs
24:50 Song Sheet Tour

Lesson Discussion

Licensed Song Sheet 3 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

Extended Video Lessons

Play-Along Cover

Here’s how I play the song from start to finish, using everything I show in my main lesson (including the bassline riff and walk-down during the instrumental). For strumming, I’m often using the bass-note pattern I teach in my tutorial – though honestly I’ll skimp on the individual bass notes (on the 1 and 3 counts) and replace them with full strums. My goal in sharing this is to demonstrate how you can mix and match the various ingredients to find something that works for you. Good luck!

Vocal Melody Explainer

Here’s a short video teaching how to play vocal melody notes, as heard in the first line of the verse and chorus. Note, I’m being very approximate here, and not capturing all the vocal flourish Jagger uses on each syllable. I mainly want to give you something to get started with if trying to learn how to sing along while playing.

Practice Track

Here’s a Key of G play-along track you can use which mimics the chord progression of this song. This includes my simple guitar strumming, with basic drums and bass added as well. The on-screen graphic should help orient you through the progression, which repeats a few times. Use this to practice strumming, chord changes, playing the riff in time - or even work on your own soloing efforts. For additional instructions on how to use this practice track, see lesson #499.

Enjoy My Lessons? Show Your Support!

Most of the lessons on my website are 100% free. If you have the means, please show your support with a tip jar contribution. I put many hours into every lesson — but it only takes you a minute to make a donation. You have my thanks!

Donate

Looking for More Song Lessons?

Recently Added

Featured Courses

Strumming & Rhythm

While your left hand is busy learning chords, your right hand has its own job: creating a sense of rhythm with strumming! This can be tricky at first, but there's so much fun-to-be-had once you get over the hump. Here's a guide to get you started.

17 lessons

View

Fingerstyle & Travis Picking

Dive into the basics of fingerstyle guitar, with plenty of examples of riffs, exercises, and songs that put this technique to use. This includes a healthy serving of Travis Picking lessons, which feature an alternating bass note played with your right thumb.

31 lessons

View

Blues Starter Kit

A guide to must-know elements of beginner blues guitar! I'll walk you through the essential topics, showing you fun things to play along the way.

18 lessons

View

Reading Music for Guitarists

Learn to read tabs, chord charts, fretboard diagrams, strumming patterns, and more! This course explains how to understand all of these must-know notation styles.

6 lessons

View

Learning Lead Guitar

A collection of videos teaching you licks, riffs, solos, and other lead guitar techniques! Includes info on scales, CAGED shapes, and other helpful lead guitar concepts.

24 lessons

View

Beginner Chord Guide

A guide to the must-know chords you'll need when getting started with guitar! The quickest way to learn major chords, minor chords, the chords in each key, and more.

22 lessons

View

Practical Music Theory

A general overview of must-know theory concepts. The goal here is practical, easy-to-understand explanations — all of which provide clarity to your everyday guitar playing.

12 lessons

View

Using a Capo

Capos are incredibly helpful if you want to play along with your favorite artist, change a song's key, adjust things to your vocal range, and so on. In this series of videos I explain all this & more!

8 lessons

View

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

Key Master

See and hear the notes, chords, scales used in each of the most common keys.

View

Blank Tabs

Free PDF templates to download, print, and write out your own guitar tabs!

View

Coming soon is Jambox – which shows all the video jam tracks I've made. It's note quite ready for the spotlight, but check it out if you like!

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

November 15, 2024

"Scarlet Begonias" by Grateful Dead

Let's dive into the 1974 classic from the Dead, with an acoustic-friendly arrangement using Key of G chords! I also show how you can include the catchy riffs wherever they occur, which is great way to channel the full spirit of this song.
November 12, 2024

Does CAGED Help When Learning Songs?

A quick audience Q&A video, where I talk about how CAGED helps (or does not help) when learning songs. Featuring the main riff from Scarlet Begonias by the Grateful Dead, which I'll be teaching soon!
November 8, 2024

Rhythm Deep Dive: "Guitar Town" by Steve Earle

Watch the process of me transcribing the rhtyhm of an incredibly tricky song! All shown in real time, in writing. Featuring "Guitar Town" by Steve Earle.
Nov 1, 2024

Website Tour – November 2024

A look at the state of the Song Notes website, as of November 2024. I've been working on more than just new lessons... check out the latest updates here!
Oct 24, 2024

"Fast Car" - Strumming & Rhythm Guide!

I've gotten a ton of emails asking how to strum Fast Car — here's a lesson showing 3 possible approaches! You can strum the whole song using what I teach, or combine this with the fingerstyle riff from lesson #494.
October 18, 2024

CAGED - It's More Than Just Chords!

Learn how each CAGED shape contains not only a chord, but also an arpeggio, pentatonic, and full diatonic scale! This is a must-know realization that'll level up any practice you do with these shapes.
October 3, 2024

Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee"

In honor of Kris Kristofferson's passing, here's a brand new play-along cover of his 1971 classic Me and Bobby McGee – with some updated strumming tips included.
September 27, 2024

Paul Simon Fingerstyle with "59th Street Bridge Song"

Let's dive into Simon & Garfunkfel's 1966 hit, where I'll walk you through several ways to tackle Paul Simon's Travis-style fingerpicking.

Browse All Recent Lessons →

← back to homepage

Country Honk

Lesson Discussion

Licensed Song Sheet 3 pages

Extended Video Lessons

Play-Along Cover

Vocal Melody Explainer

Practice Track

Other Videos of Note

Album Recording from “Let It Bleed” (1969)

Keith and Mick Backstage (2016)

Related Lessons I’ve Made

Unlock My Secret Stash!

Browse Related Lessons

Enjoy My Lessons? Show Your Support!

Looking for More Song Lessons?

Featured Courses

Strumming & Rhythm

Fingerstyle & Travis Picking

Blues Starter Kit

Reading Music for Guitarists

Learning Lead Guitar

Beginner Chord Guide

Practical Music Theory

Using a Capo

Fun & Helpful Tools I've Made

Fret Monster

Capo Captain

Key Master

Blank Tabs

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Recent Lessons