Ed Sheeran wrote a suspiciously polite little kiss-off, handed it to Justin Bieber, and somehow the most passive-aggressive breakup line of 2015 became the riff your fingers secretly want to learn. "My mama don't like you and she likes everyone" — brutal, and yet here we all are, humming it while we practice.
This 45-second clip takes the "Love Yourself" intro riff and hands you two different fingerings for the exact same melody, so you can steal whichever one your left hand hates less. Same notes, two neighbourhoods on the fretboard — pick your favourite and pretend you planned it.
How the two fingerings work
The riff is really just the vocal melody sitting politely on top of E major, and here's the nerdy part worth taking home: a single line almost never lives in only one spot on the neck. One version keeps the notes low, close to the open strings, where your hand barely moves. The other shifts the same melody up a few frets so the notes fall under one tidy hand position with fewer jumps. Neither is "correct" — they're just two ways to play the same thing.
The useful takeaway: whenever you learn a lick, hunt it down in at least two positions. The "best" fingering is simply the one where the slides, hammer-ons and phrasing happen for free, and that changes depending on what comes before and after. If you're squinting at the shapes, my guide to reading tabs will get you unstuck.
And yes, the song literally tells you to love yourself — so love yourself enough to grab the tab and Guitar Pro file, compare both fingerings side by side, and settle the argument your two hands are currently having. It's all waiting on my Patreon.