Wild Thing Guitar Lesson – The Troggs

About this lesson

With our guitar tutorial on Wild Thing, you will learn these guitar skills: Open chords, String bending, Strumming patterns.

Wild Thing is one of our easiest guitar songs recommended mainly for beginner guitarists, and for anybody that likes the song itself.

The song starts off with a reverse string bend which is uncommon but sounds great in this song. After this initial bend, you’ll learn, or rather revise a couple of basic guitar chords, and practice changing in between them. You’ll be learning about the ever-popular I-IV-V chord progression in Wild Thing, then strum the chords in a given strumming pattern.

This song is great for beginner guitarists as it involves basic chords and strumming, can be learned easily and gives a great opportunity to practice basic guitar techniques.

Wild Thing song details

Wild Thing was originally written by Chip Taylor and recorded by The Wild Ones in 1965, but it's best known for its 1966 cover by The Troggs. Their critically acclaimed single reached the top of the charts and has become a true classic with numerous awards. It’s been covered by artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Aerosmith, and has been used in a number of movies.

Wild Thing awards and chart rankings

• Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: #257
• Billboard Hot 100: #1 (1966)
• UK: #2 (1966)

Skills you'll learn