How to Highway to Hell: the right chords

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01][music] >> I did a video on how to count the riff for Highway to Hell and how to get that groove right.

[00:00:13]Now I'm getting asked how the chords go, so here's a vid for that. The song is in the key of A and the chords are simply A, D, [music] E, and G.

[00:00:24]You can play the regular open chords and it'll sound okay, but it won't sound right. [music] It won't sound like Highway to Hell unless you use the particular versions of these chords that AC/DC used.

[00:00:36]Here they are. First off, the A chord, pretty normal. I play it with the index finger barred, >> [music] >> but you can easily play it instead with fingers 1, 2, and 3.

[00:00:47]1, 2, 3. Well, I'm not playing so you can hear it. Um notice that we only play four strings, the A, the D, the G, and the B strings.

[00:00:55]That's important.

[00:00:57]Next, the most important detail to this riff is called the D/F# chord. Not a normal D major chord, it's called D/F#.

[00:01:08]Definition-wise, what that means is that it's a D major chord, but you play the pitch F# as the bass note, hence the term D/F#.

[00:01:17]A regular D major chord uses a high F# up here on the high E string, second fret, but we're going to move that down to the low E string, second fret, [music] which is also an F#, and we're not going to hit the high string at all. So, that means you're going to get second fret, no A string, muted, open D, second fret, third fret, and no high E string either.

[00:01:41]>> [music] >> Like this, a very dark, very tight, punchy chord.

[00:01:46]Then for the G chord, we adjust it just a little from the norm so that it flows well from the previous chord.

[00:01:52]Uh and it's going to be third fret, deadened A string, open, open, and third fret, and again, no high E.

[00:02:00]So, when you play these particular chords, now you can actually hear that it's Highway to Hell.

[00:02:06]And then >> [music] >> and you get that bass movement.

[00:02:14]And that's what helps the riff be the riff.

[00:02:18]Okay, lastly, the chorus. Here they use a regular open chord voicing straight up, all the normal stuff.

[00:02:26]E >> [music] [music] >> Like that. So, that's it. That's the right chords for Highway to Hell. See my related video for how to count it and how to play the groove in time. Links are also in the description.