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Okay, Jailbreak is one that probably everyone who’s a fan of Thin Lizzy has heard, and one that almost every guitar player I’ve met has learnt the main riff of at some stage. Well, now I’m going to take the entire song apart and show you note for note how it is played, as well as showing you the theory behind it as clearly and as simply as possible. With that out of the way, here’s the lesson:
Firstly be aware that this song is performed while the guitars and bass are tuned to E flat standard tuning on the studio version and on most of the live versions; in other words, all the strings have been tuned a semi-tone lower than the usual e standard tuning (or one fret lower for those who don’t know what a semi-tone is). I’ve written this lesson using the guitar in this lowered tuning, but it is still possible to play the song in normal tuning; it just means that if you’re singing along then you’ll have to sing higher.
Intro
1st guitar
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||-9----------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||-9----------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Ab||-7(let notes ring)|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||-0----------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
2nd guitar
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||-15v(let notes ring)-----------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Ab||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Main Riff:
1st Guitar
This riff is continually played by both guitars during the song, and the part written for the second guitar
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||2-----------------|2-----------------||2-----------------|2-----------------|
Ab||0--2--4-4---------|0--2--4-4---------||0--2--4-4---------|0--2--4-4---------|
Eb||---0--2-2--0-0-2-0|---0--2-2--0-0-2-0||---0--2-2--0-0-2-0|---0--2-2--0-0-2-0|
2nd Guitar
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||2-----------------|2-----------------||2-----------------|-11----7----------|
Ab||0--2--4-4---------|0--2--4-4---------||0--2--4-4---------|----------9-9\----|
Eb||---0--2-2--0-0-2-0|---0--2-2--0-0-2-0||---0--2-2--0-0-2-0|------------------|
This Song is using a scale known as Minor pentatonic, or to be more specific, the minor pentatonic blues scale in the key of F. And what the hell does this mean? I’ll show you below:
For those of you who don’t know, the key of a song is the note that a repeating pattern of notes starts on, often referred to as the root note of a scale. The ‘minor’ referes to the fact that the scale has a minor 3rd (or sad sounding third note) in it, the ‘blues’ refers to the extra added blues note in the scale and pentatonic is the basic scale of five notes that’s being used (penta-tonic = five-tones).
Don’t worry if this seems confusing as I will be putting up lessons on how to recognise scales soon, and I am also going to write all of this out for you anyway. Here is the pentatonic blues scale written out in two octaves in the key of F.
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------5-----7----|
Gb||------------------|------------------||-----------4----5-|-6----------------|
Db||------------------|-------2-----4----||-4----7-----------|------------------|
Ab||-----------2----3-|-4----------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||-2----5-----------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
See how the notes from the song are picked from this scale? If you use this scale during the short solo sections dotted throughout the song you should get a solo that feels like it matches up with the song. Remember, you don’t need to play the exact same solo as the guys who originally wrote the song but it’s a good idea to play close attention to how they played it so you can pick up their style of playing.
Also remember that Brian Robertson, the second guitarist in Thin Lizzy when Jailbreak was written, used a wah-wah continually throughout the song, so listen out for how and when he used that to get a feel for what you should be doing with you feet during the song as well.
Now here are the verse parts to the song. I reality there are only two guitarists playing live so they both play the power chords for the verse part, but in the studio version it is layered so that a subtle lead guitar part could be added in along with the rhythm parts. This is why there are actually three guitar parts rather than two for the verse sections:
1st Guitar part
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||-4----------------|-4----------------||-4----------------|------------------|
Db||-4--------2-------|-4--------2-------||-4--------2-------|-----2------------|
Ab||-2--------2-------|-2--------2-------||-2--------2-------|-0-2--------4-----|
Eb||----------0-------|----------0-------||----------0-------|-------4--0-2-----|
2nd Guitar part
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||-4--------9-------|-4--------9-------||-4--------9-------|------------------|
Db||-4--------9-------|-4--------9-------||-4--------9-------|-----2------------|
Ab||-2--------7-------|-2--------7-------||-2--------7-------|-0-2--------------|
Eb||----------0-------|----------0-------||----------0-------|-------4--0-2v----|
3rd Guitar part
Eb||-14-14-14b16r14---|-/19-19-19--------||-14-14-14b16r14---|------------------|
Bb||---------------17v|-------------17v--||---------------17v|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||------------------|------------------||------------------|-----2------------|
Ab||------------------|------------------||------------------|-0-2--------4-----|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------4--0-2-----|
Okay, the next part up is the part that builds up to the solo section, and in a way it’s the odd part out of the entire song as not only is it breaking away from the scale the est of the song is played in, but it’s also not really using any scale in particular, instead it’s steadily raising the notes being played for the effect of it. This is known amongst classical guitarists as a chromatic phrase. Here’s the section in tab.
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-|
Ab||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-|
Ab||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Ab||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Gb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Db||-4--0--0--5--0--0-|-6--0--0--7--0--0-||-8--0--0--9--0--0-|10--0--0--12v-----|
Ab||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
The rest of the song’s structure is simply repeating the previous parts that I’ve written down, with the exception of the solo added ion the live versions. In order to pull that of, I recommend that you use the scale that I mentioned at the beginning of this lesson and focus on trying to get brian robertson’s style to show in your playing. Remember that this song uses a wah-wah pedal throughout the solo sections, so you will have to experiment with that as well for the best results.
Pentatonic blues scale in F
Eb||------------------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
Bb||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------5-----7----|
Gb||------------------|------------------||-----------4----5-|-6----------------|
Db||------------------|-------2-----4----||-4----7-----------|------------------|
Ab||-----------2----3-|-4----------------||------------------|------------------|
Eb||-2----5-----------|------------------||------------------|------------------|
And that’s pretty much all there is to it. Feel free to let me know if you think that there’s something that I’ve missed and I’ll do my best to add it in another lesson for you. Hope this lesson has helped some of you guys out there.
Take care and I’ll see you next time!
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