DOWNLOAD THE SONGSHEET
I'll Be Back (WORD)
I'll Be Back (PDF)
You can play along with the video in GCEA tuning!
"I'll Be Back" was not released in North America until Beatles '65 five months later. According to musicologist Ian MacDonald, Lennon created the song based on the chords of Del Shannon's "Runaway" which had been a UK hit in April 1961. Author Bill Harry also wrote: "He just reworked the chords of the Shannon number and came up with a completely different song".
With its poignant lyric and flamenco style acoustic guitars "I'll Be Back" possesses a tragic air and is somewhat eccentric in structure. Unusually for a pop song it oscillates between major and minor keys; appears to have two different bridges and lacks a chorus. The fade-out ending also arrives unexpectedly, being a half stanza premature. The metric structure also is unusual varying between 4/4 and 2/4 time. (Wikipedia)
****REVISED July 24, 2019 - SR****