Easy acoustic and electric beginner-friendly songs with links to FREE Tab – hardly any barre chords guaranteed
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You’re looking for the best beginner guitar songs you can learn, right?
That’s a smart move.
Why?
Because it doesn’t matter if you’re a total beginner or if you’re simply looking for some fresh inspiration and motivation – learning some easy songs is the way to go.
Easy Should Mean Easy
Here’s the deal: Only genuinely easy songs for beginners make it to this list. You won’t find any songs with tons of barre chords, super-fast changes, or tricky technical bits here.
As a teacher with years of experience, I’ve heard a lot of complaints from beginners about the endless “Top Easy Guitar Songs” lists online.
These lists often contain quite difficult songs, such as “Stairway to Heaven” (which is actually very technical). So rest assured, you won’t find any of those songs on this list!
Pro Tip
If you follow the steps below, you'll soon be playing the songs confidently and with ease.
Before we reveal the best easy beginner guitar songs you should start to learn, here are three practice tips for the total beginners out of you reading this.
3 Essential Practice Tips
Tip #1. Make sure you know the important beginner chords
To kickstart your song-playing journey, it’s crucial to get a grasp of the fundamental chord shapes.
If you’re feeling a bit uncertain about those essential open chords, take a peek at my popular book Essential Guitar Chords for Beginners.
It’s the perfect guide for learning the most essential chord shapes used in your favourite songs.
Tip #2. Practice the chord changes over and over
Here’s a critical tip: To excel in playing songs, it’s not solely about song knowledge.
You must focus on refining your technique, sharpening your timing, and nailing your strumming rhythm, along with various other aspects of your guitar skills.
Tip #3. Play along with the song recordings
Once you start to get the chords sounding clean, the only way you’ll learn to play a song well is to play along with it.
If you miss this vital (and fun) step out, how will you ever know you have the timing, rhythm and phrasing right?
Now you are armed with the know-how you need to help you learn these easy songs the best way, let’s get to the list.
Top 20 Easy Beginner Songs To Play On Guitar
1. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
Song key: A
Chords or Picking: Both
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
2. Wild Thing – The Troggs
Song key: A
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
3. The Beatles – Eight Days a Week
Song key: D
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
4. Three Little Birds – Bob Marley
Song key: A
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
5. A Horse With No Name – America
Song key: Em
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
6. Creep – Radiohead
Song key: G
Chords or Picking: Chords (inc 2 x barre)
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
7. Imagine – John Lennon
Song key: C
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
8. Son Of a Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
Song key: E
Chords or Picking: Both
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
9. Oasis – Live Forever
Song key: G
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
10. Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers
Song key: Am
Chords or Picking: Both
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
11. Sing – Travis
Song key: F#m (capo fret 3 using key of Em chords)
Chords or Picking: Chords
12. Just The Way You Are – Bruno Mars
Song key: F (G capo fret 3)
Chords or Picking: Chords ( inc 1 x barre)
Useful Accessory: Capo – amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
13. Use Somebody – Kings of Leon
Song key: C
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
14. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Song key: Fm
Chords or Picking: Chords (power chords)
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
15. Small Bump – Ed Sheeran
Song key: Gm (Em capo fret 3)
Chords or Picking: Chords
Useful Accessory: Capo – amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
16. Knocking On Heavens Door – Bob Dylan
Song key: G
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
17. What’s Up – Four Non Blondes
Song key: A (G capo fret 2)
Chords or Picking: Chords
Useful Accessory: Capo – amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
18. Pink – What About Us
Song key: Fm (Em capo fret 1)
Chords or Picking: Both
Useful Accessory: Capo – amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
19. Handbags And Gladrags – Rod Stewart
Song key: G
Chords or Picking: Chords
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
20. Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
Song key: D
Chords or Picking: Both
Official tab/chord book | Ultimate Guitar tab/chords
Summing it Up
There you have it. Some brilliant, easy acoustic and electric guitar songs for beginners and beyond to get learning. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun playing these songs.
And who knows, you might start writing your own songs one day soon!
