Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Full song lesson (#269)

Play-along cover (#270)

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Editor’s notes

Hello my friends! In this lesson I’ll be showing you how to play “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. This is one of the first songs I played at open mic nights back when I was getting confidence with my guitar skills - and it’s been a blast to pick it back up again. I’ll teach you the basics, as well as plenty of intermediate and advanced stuff (double strumming, percussive strum pattern, chorus walkdown, etc). As always, I sincerely hope you find this helpful in learning this fun tune.

Here’s my timestamps for this lesson:

• 0:00 Lesson overview
• 1:12 Chords needed
• 2:18 Strumming (simple)
• 3:00 Chord progressions
• 4:55 Chorus walk-down chords
• 8:07 Strumming (intermediate & advanced)
• 12:53 Double-strumming in the intro
• 14:49 Farewell

I hope you enjoy! If you’re hungry for more CCR, I also have lessons for this song:

• Lookin’ Out My Backdoor

Thanks all, David Pots.

Techniques I reference in this lesson

Percussive “slap” strumming:

Playing the F chord with a wrapped thumb:

The official CCR version

If you want to listen to the CCR album version, here you go:

Of the countless covers of this song, the most recent one I heard that caught my ear was from Callista Clark, who combines an absolutely killer voice with a very authentic (and literal) front porch vibe.

Lyrics w/ chords

Intro
    | Am . . . | F . . . | C . . . | G . . . |
    | C  . . . | G . . . |

Verse
    C
    Someone told me long ago... there’s a calm before the storm
      G                           C
    I know... and its been coming for some time
    C
    ...When its over so they say... it’ll rain a sunny day
        G                       C      C7
    I know... shining down like water

Chorus
        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G             C
        ...Coming down a sunny day

    C
    ...Yesterday and days before... sun is cold and rain is hot
        G                       C
    I know... been that way for all my time
    C
    ‘Till forever on it goes... through the circle fast and slow
        G                         C
    I know... and I can’t stop, I wonder

        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G             C    C7
        ...Coming down a sunny day... ahhhh!

        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G              C    C/B      Am   C/G
        ...I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
        F          G             C          (end on C)
        ...Coming down a sunny day