Learn Nothing Compares 2 U on Guitar | Step-by-Step Lesson

Hey guitar enthusiasts, Lauren Bateman here. We're gonna be doing '90s classic by Sinead O'Connor called Nothing Compares to You. Now the tricky thing about this song is that there really isn't a lot of guitar in the song, so how do we actually put guitar to a song that really doesn't have any? So we're gonna go through that step by step here. There's also a lot of building that happens in this song in terms of soft versus loud, so we're gonna talk how we can add to that as we play through the song. But first, let's start off with our chords. We have a lot of open chords. You're going to see here I have a capo on the 3rd fret, okay? So it's going to be an A chord, a G chord, a C chord, a D chord. We do have a B minor chord, which is a bar chord. If you can't play the bars yet, you could do the 4-finger version of B minor, which is basically on the frets 4, 4, 3, 2. Okay, or you could just do the 3-fingered version, which is, um, frets 4, 3, 2. The other is F, F sharp 7, very bluesy sounding chord, which is, um, very, you know, interesting. They use that because that comes over the line where she goes, nothing can take away these blues. So you get this kind of bluesy chord. So if you're not familiar with that or you have a hard time doing bar chords, what you could do is just play 2, 2, and then 3 on the G string. Okay, it's good. Those— if you just use the treble strings, it's going to sound very bright. It's going to sound almost a little bit harsh, but at least it allows you to play something until you can work your way up to playing the full bar chords. So this song starts out very, very even-kiltered. It's mostly like synth. I think it's like a synth keyboard or something, um, so in some strings. So there's really no guitar to start off. So For us, I would just keep the beginning very, very simple, which is doing single strums. So each chord is going to be 1 measure, 1 strum, with the exception of the D and the A chords, okay? On the end of this chord progression, it is D, A, B minor, and then we have a split measure of D and A. So the D is going to be 2 beats, and the A is going to be 2 beats. So if you take it from the beginning, it's going to sound like this.

It's been 7 hours and 15 days. Since you took your love away.

Okay, so that D and A are just gonna move a little bit faster, and then it just repeats that.

I go out every night and sleep all day, um, since you took your love away.

Okay, and then we're gonna do that one more time until we get to the line I can eat my dinner at a fancy restaurant, because that's the first line of the song where things start to pick up a little bit. So our strumming pattern at this point is going to change to match the intensity of the song. So all I'm doing here is I'm just going to do 1, 2, 3, 4, and, uh, okay, that's the count. And the strumming is down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, down. So if I put that over the progression, it's going to be: I can eat my dinner at a fancy restaurant, but nothing can—

nothing can take away these blues.

And then we hop into our chorus where the strumming is going to change again because now we've got split measures. So it's going to be a split measure of C to G and a split measure of B minor to A minor. And on those, we're going to go 1, 2 and a 3, 4 and a down, down, down, up, down, down, down. So there, on each chord, we're just doing down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up. So if I take it Um, from that, since you've been gone, I'll do the single strums, I'll do the new picking, and then the chorus picking, just so you can hear where we are to this point. And don't worry, at the end I'm going to do a full playthrough for you as well. But let's break it down.

So the first part, since you've been gone, I can do whatever I want, I can see whomever I choose.

Now it's the next drumming pattern.

I can eat my dinner at a fancy restaurant, but nothing, I said nothing can take away these blues, 'cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you.

Okay, and I think this next verse is where our drums come in. So this is where we're going to bring it up even more. And I apologize, Sinead has such a beautiful voice, I cannot match her. Um, so I'm doing the best I can, but let's talk about this next verse. So like I said, the drums are going to come in, so the, the music's going to come up a bit here. So we want to bring our strumming up with it. So what we're going to do is we're just going to add some more strumming. So now we're going to go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and all downs with an up on the end. Okay? So it's an eighth note pattern with the 16th note at the very end as up. So it's down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, up. Okay, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And try it on your arm read.

So that's what we're going to do on this verse section, okay?

And we're going to keep things pretty even-kilter, um, because we can build on this even more as we come into our, our next verse and chorus. So at this point, we're just going to be adding volume to the song, okay? So this next verse, we're going to keep it like very, very even-kilter, but maybe when I get into that chorus, that's that next chorus, I'm gonna make this guitar sound really loud. Okay, and after that we have an interlude, which is a violin solo. Okay, we can keep that nice and even kilter. And then kind of the biggest verse is the one that goes, all the flowers that you planted, Mama.

In the backyard.

So again, you can either get louded— louded— you can get louder, or, or you can pick it up even more. Okay, and we could add some accented strumming. So you can see we're just building this song one verse at a time. So we're gonna keep the same strumming pattern except it's gonna be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. So I'm just giving the 2 and the 4 a little extra oomph. So I'm keeping the rest of it pretty quiet, and I'm only kind of hitting the top part of the chord. I'm not hit— I'm not getting the whole chord. So I'm kind of going 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And, uh, okay, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And, uh, okay, so if I put that just in that All the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the backyard all died when you went away. Okay, and on that DNA, because there's no lyrics, I'm really letting the guitar open up so that when the vocal comes back in, I can bring it back down. So just so you can hear how that sounds on that verse before we do a full playthrough so you can hear the dynamics that we're playing with in this song.

We've got all the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the backyard all died when you went away. Loud. I don't even— with the baby, well, sometimes I— but I'm willing to give it another try.

So even on that F#7 at the very end, you can hear I get really loud because it's, it's, it's creating emotional— this is an emotional song, okay? It's creating emotional intensity, and we want to build that. Even though it's, you know, it's a very, very simple song, um, there's a lot that's going on, dynamics to grow the song over time. All right, let's take this from the top. One strum each. Ready? 1, 2, here we go.

Um, it's been 7 hours and 15 days since you took your love away. I go out every night and sleep all day. Since you took your love away. Since you've been gone, I can do whatever I want. I can see whoever I choose.

Here's the strumming, ready?

I can eat my dinner at a fancy restaurant. But nothing, I said nothing, can take away these blues. 'Cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you. It's been so lonely without you. Here like a bird without a song. Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling. Tell me, baby, where did I go wrong? I could put my arms around every boy I see. They only remind me of you. Well, I went to the doctor and guess what he told me? Guess what he told me? He said, girl, you better try to have fun no matter what you do. This here's the truth, nothing compares. Nothing compares to you.

And here's the interlude.

All the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the backyard all died when you went away. I know that living with your baby was sometimes hard. But I'm willing to give it another try. I'm back. It's nothing compares. Nothing compares to you. There's nothing compares. Nothing compares to you. 'Cause nothing compares.

All right, I really hope you enjoyed this song and building it over time. It's a really, really great song for working on dynamics, and you can really get into it emotionally on the playing. You probably saw that in the interlude. Great song. It's, it's a really fun, fun song to play. So if you're a '90s child just like me and you enjoy this style of music, go check out my playlist of songs right over there by female artists like Alanis Morissette, Melissa Etheridge, and so much more. Go have fun right over there.