Description

The Tide Is High is a 1967 rocksteady song originally written and performed by Jamaican singer John Holt and his group The Paragons. The song was covered by the American new wave band Blondie in 1980, in a reggae style that included horns and strings. It was released as the lead single from the band’s fifth album, Autoamerican (1980), giving Blondie their third number 1 single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and their fifth in the UK.

This version, arranged for guitar quartet, is light hearted and fun to play. The main melodies, taken from both the strings and Debbie Harry’s vocals, lie in high positions on the guitar, up to XI, but are carefully annotated and fingered and should not present any real problem for guitar 1. The rhythm and bass are straightforward based around three chords, B F# and E. If you have an acoustic bass available it works better but an ordinary guitar is also fine especially if you damp the bass strings.