The 10 Best First Songs to Learn on Guitar (We Asked 300+ Players)
We asked our community a question that sounds simple and absolutely is not: what’s the first song every beginner guitarist should learn?
Over 300 players weighed in. Some have been picking for 60+ years. Some picked up a guitar last month. We heard from music teachers, gigging musicians, weekend hobbyists, and a few people who learned three chords in 1973 and have been happily playing those same three chords ever since.
The answers were all over the map. Some serious, some sarcastic, a few that made us laugh out loud.
But a handful of songs came up over and over and over again.
Here’s what 300 guitarists voted for, ranked by how often they got mentioned.
1. House of the Rising Sun (The Animals)
This was the runaway winner, and it was not even close.
This one got named more than any other song by a wide margin. Players who learned it 60 years ago said they still play it on the regular. People who learned it last week said it was the song that hooked them.
Here’s why it works so well for a first song:
The chords are basic open shapes (Am, C, D, F, E). The arpeggiated picking pattern trains your right hand without overwhelming it. There’s no lead part to wrestle with, it forces clean chord changes, and the best part is it sounds like a real song when you play it.
If you’re brand new and you genuinely don’t know where to start, this is your answer. Half a century of guitarists can’t all be wrong.
2. Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple)
The other obvious one. It was the clear second recommendation.
Smoke on the Water is a rite of passage. The opening riff is four notes, you can learn it in about five minutes, and the second you play it you sound like a guitar player.
That feeling matters more than beginners realize.
A bunch of players confessed in the comments that they (and basically everyone else on earth) learned the riff wrong the first time, picking it out on the low E string instead of as the two-note power chords Ritchie Blackmore plays.
But it doesn’t matter, you’ll fix that later. The win is that you played a song on day one.
Also, apparently some shops still post signs banning Smoke on the Water and Stairway to Heaven when people are trying out guitars. That’s how iconic this riff is!
3. Horse With No Name (America)
This one’s easy. It’s two chords: Em and a weird-sounding D variant.
And that’s the whole song.
If you can change between two chords, you can play Horse With No Name start to finish.
The strum is mellow, the shapes are easy, and you can sing along while you play, which most beginners don’t get to do for a while. This is about as “I picked up a guitar yesterday” friendly as it gets.
4. Wipeout (The Surfaris)
A surprisingly popular pick.
The drums get all the glory on this one, but the guitar part is a great way to practice running up and down the scale quickly. It’s fun, recognizable, and it builds finger speed.
That last part counts for a lot because nobody sticks with drills. But everybody sticks with a song.
5. Iron Man (Black Sabbath)
Like Smoke on the Water, this one’s all about the riff.
It’s chunky, heavy, and it’s wayyyyy easier than it sounds. Beginners can pick out the main melody on a single string inside an hour, and it sneaks power chords in so naturally you barely notice you’re learning the building block for most of rock music.
One commenter admitted he used to play Iron Man and Smoke on the Water on the low E string at 7 years old and thought he was the coolest kid alive. And let’s be honest, he was!
6. Wildwood Flower (Carter Family)
If you’ve ever taken a real lesson from a real teacher, you’ve probably played Wildwood Flower.
It’s the granddaddy of beginner songs. Multiple players who’ve been at it for 40 to 60 years said this was their very first one. It teaches melody picking, basic shapes, and the Carter scratch style that became foundational for pretty much all of American folk and country.
7. Mary Had a Little Lamb / Twinkle Twinkle / Hot Cross Buns
Bundling these because they all do the same job.
Nursery rhymes are a weirdly underrated starting point. The melodies are already in your head, so your ear tells you instantly when you’re playing them right (and when you aren’t).
They live on the high strings, so no chord shapes required, and they let you practice picking single notes before you ever have to think about chord transitions.
It might seem boring, but it’s effective.
8. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan)
This one requires four chords: G, D, Am, and C.
Learn those four shapes and you can play the whole thing. And the strum is forgiving enough that you can fumble the rhythm a little and still sound fine.
The bonus is that almost everyone knows this song, which means everyone can sing along with you. That’s a fun add!
9. Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry)
This one is a step up from everything above it.
This isn’t quite as beginner-friendly as the rest of the list, but it got named enough times to earn its spot.
The opening lick is iconic, and it throws you into bends, hammer-ons, and a bluesy feel. If you’re a more ambitious beginner, this is a good one to start with.
10. Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
This one’s complicated.
Several people listed Stairway. Several other people made fun of those people for listing Stairway. You can almost hear the “no Stairway” from Wayne’s World playing in the background haha!
The intro fingerpicking part is gorgeous and not all that hard. The rest of the song.. way beyond beginner level.
If you want a goal to work toward, learn the intro. If you want a song you can play start to finish in month one, pick almost anything else on this list!
The Honorable Mentions
A bunch of songs picked up 2 to 3 votes each and deserve a quick shoutout:
- Day Tripper (The Beatles), iconic riff, great beginner exercise
- Blowin’ in the Wind (Bob Dylan), three chords, easy strum
- Rumble (Link Wray), the OG cool-kid guitar song
- Tom Dooley, classic folk, classic shapes
- Louie Louie, three chords, possibly the most-covered song ever written
- Wagon Wheel, four chords, sing-along ready
- La Bamba, same chords forever
- Country Roads (John Denver), basic chords
- Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd), the intro is a fingerpicking gem
- Wild Thing (The Troggs), three chords and attitude included
- Last Kiss (Pearl Jam version), G, Em, C, D, sad and easy
- Seven Nation Army, basically one note, but you’ll sound cool playing it
The Joke Picks
Some of the funniest answers were songs no human should ever learn first.
Eruption by Van Halen got multiple votes. So did Cliffs of Dover. Master of Puppets. Far Beyond the Sun by Yngwie. Flight of the Bumblebee. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. Free Bird.
The logic was always the same: “If you can play this, everything else is easy.”
That’s technically true, but seriously terrible advice.
But the spirit of it isn’t wrong. Basically, pick songs that intimidate you a little, and aim higher than your skill level.
Just maybe not on day one, with a brand new guitar and three calluses you haven’t grown yet.
The Real Answer..
After all the song suggestions, the single most common answer (especially from the players who’ve been at it the longest) wasn’t a song at all.
It was to learn whatever song you want to play.
The same idea kept coming back, in different words:
- “The one that motivates them to learn more.”
- “Their favorite song.”
- “Something they absolutely love. Because once they realize they can play it, they’re hooked. And they’ll never put that guitar down.”
- “The first question I ask any student is what’s your favorite band. Then we listen and pick something within reason.”
If you love Tom Petty, learn a Tom Petty song (Free Fallin’ is three chords and pure joy).
If you love Metallica, find their easiest riff (Enter Sandman or For Whom the Bell Tolls, probably) and learn that.
If you love Hank Williams, learn a Hank Williams song. The man wrote some of the most chord-friendly tunes in country music.
The biggest predictor of whether someone sticks with guitar isn’t which song they learned first, but whether they liked playing it enough to learn a second one.
So What Should YOU Learn First?
- Start with House of the Rising Sun or Horse With No Name for chord changes and strumming
- Learn the Smoke on the Water riff for the dopamine hit of sounding like a real guitarist
- Pick a song you genuinely love and pull the chords off Ultimate Guitar
- Repeat forever
Pick the song that makes you fall in love with the instrument.
