David Bowie recorded “Rebel Rebel” in late 1973 without his longtime guitarist Mick Ronson — he grabbed a Les Paul himself, played the riff to the room, and that two-chord figure drove the song for nearly four and a half minutes straight on the album. It’s proof that the right groove doesn’t need much. In this lesson, Marty Schwartz breaks down the riff, the chord shapes, and the full song structure so you can play it start to finish.
Key, Tuning, and Setup
Standard tuning, no capo. The song sits in A major, but the riff is built almost entirely on D major and E major — the IV and V chords. That’s it. Two chords, locked in a groove, repeated for the whole song. Marty adds one small color between them that gives the riff its slightly sus-pendy, wide-open feel.
The Two Core Chords
Marty starts with a regular D major chord. Then he lifts his middle finger off. That leaves his index finger on the third fret of the B string and his ring finger on the third fret of the high E — the result is an Asus2 voicing that he uses as a transition color between D and E.
From there, he moves to E major — a full open E shape.
Those two shapes are the foundation of everything in the main riff. If you can move smoothly between D and E, you have the riff.
The Main Riff, Step by Step
Here’s where it gets fun. Marty doesn’t just strum D-to-E — there’s a specific picking and strumming pattern that gives the riff its punch.
While holding the D power chord shape, he picks the open D string and G string together as the first hit. He lets those ring, then picks single notes on the high E string. Next, his ring finger comes off the chord and his middle finger drops back to the second fret of the B string. He strums those two strings together, then transitions quickly to a full E major chord and hits it twice — a short “bump bump” stab.
After those two E stabs, he picks the open low E string. While holding the E chord, he does a pull-off on the second fret of the B string with his pinky. Then a single note on the G string, then the D string — all while the E chord rings underneath.
It sounds like a lot of moving parts. But once the muscle memory locks in, the whole thing flows as one continuous motion. Go slow with it first.
The Verse Chords
The verse adds a few more shapes. Marty walks through an A major chord, then a one-finger move to D major (just one finger barring across the second fret handles this quickly), then B minor — bar the second fret and form an A minor shape — and then back to E major.
The changes happen fairly quickly in context, but the progression is A – D – Bm – E. Marty’s tip: get comfortable with that B minor barre shape on its own before you try to make the changes at tempo.
The Chorus
The chorus is the simplest part of the whole song. On the line “hot tramp, I love you so” — which might be Bowie’s greatest lyric — Marty plays a plain D to E. That’s the entire chorus. The same two chords from the riff, stripped down even further. The song really commits to that two-chord idea all the way through.
Why the Riff Works
Bowie reportedly told the musicians in the session that he wanted “Rebel Rebel” to sound like the Rolling Stones — and it does. The riff has that chunky, garage-rock feel. But what actually makes it stick is the combination of the open strings ringing while the fretting hand moves. The open D and E strings give it that big, resonant sound that fills a room. The pull-off and the single-note runs between the stabs keep it moving without overcomplicating the feel.
Simple ingredients. Executed with conviction. That’s really all it takes.
Putting It Together
Marty’s suggestion is to get the riff itself solid before worrying about the verse chords or the chorus. The riff is the song — it runs almost the whole way through. Once the D-to-E motion with all the picking and pull-off detail feels natural, the rest of the song falls into place quickly.
Start at half speed. The groove matters more than the tempo. When it starts to feel like a locked-in thing rather than a series of finger positions to hit, you’re there.
This one rewards patience. The payoff — when the riff finally locks in and you can feel the whole thing swinging — is genuinely satisfying. Keep at it.
