“One Battle After Another” is an action-comedy-thriller film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely adapted from the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood composed the film score, marking his sixth collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson.

I love all things Radiohead, and Jonny Greenwood is one of my all time favorite guitarists and composers. In a musical sense, he is free; completely untethered from convention. The score for One Battle After Another is tense and erratic — often using discordant piano, guitar, and unpredictable percussion to reflect the film’s shifts in tone from comedy to thriller.

While there’s a few guitar pieces on the soundtrack (which will eventually find their way to this blog) I was most interested in the title theme, “One Battle After Another”. The chord progression is so Radiohead that I have to wonder if it was originally earmarked for one of Greenwood’s rock projects.

This arrangement worked our beautifully for fingerstyle guitar  — and is incredibly easy to play.

You might also like to play…

There Will Be Blood: Prospector Arrives | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Jonny Greenwood: Phantom Thread III | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Radiohead: Exit Music (For a Film) | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

How to play One Battle After Another | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for this arrangement is beautifully written across 2 pages. I recommend this piece for beginner guitar players and up. Enjoy! The guitar tab is available below:

My song structure looks like this, in accordance with the guitar tab:

Intro, Verse 2x, Chorus

Verse 1x, Chorus, Bridge

Verse 1x, Chorus, Bridge

Verse 1x, End

[guitar tab] **One Battle After Another (Jonny Greenwood) | fingerstyle guitar

My tuning for this piece is an ultra-low alternate tuning: Bb F Bb D G C.

However, if you’d like to play to play it it in a more reasonable tuning, use: D A D F# B E (obviously the pitch will be higher, but it still sounds spot on).