OPEN-MIC SONGBOOK

Mike Rosenberg takes you on a ride up to the dusty end of the fretboard with this capo’d corker

Passenger, aka Mike Rosenberg released the album Songs For The Drunk And Broken Hearted to widespread acclaim earlier in 2021. The opening track that we’re covering here has a number of remixes, but we’re looking at the original album version. Whilst there’s a ‘gingerbread mix’ that was coproduced with Ed Sheeran (you can hear the classic pop hallmarks of Sheeran’s style in the production and arrangement) the guitars take the back seat. The album version features strummed acoustic chords with the capo at the 8th fret. This does mean access is a little tighter than usual (though a narrower capo will give your fingers more fretting room) but the transposed chords sound great higher up the neck. There’s also a purely acoustic version that Mike released as part of a standalone project, so it’s worth checking out his fingerstyle technique on this, as it’s how he usually performs it live.