How to play the Day Tripper riff by The Beatles

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The Beatles live at Circus Crone
The Beatles live at Circus Crone (Image credit: Bettmann/CORBIS)

Released as a double A-side with We Can Work It Out on 3 December 1965, Day Tripper is a classic slice of Lennon rock 'n' roll, with one of the most famous riffs in The Beatles' canon.

There's some doubt as to what guitars it was recorded with as so many instruments were present during the Rubber Soul sessions, but to get close, set up a slightly edgy clean sound and use the bridge pickup of a semi-acoustic like a Gibson ES-345 or Epiphone Casino.

Here, we've used an Eastwood Airline RS-II guitar through a Vox DA10 combo set up to roughly approximate an AC30. The riff is moved through three positions throughout the track, but here it is in E, as per the intro.

Chris Vinnicombe

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.