Beginner Beatles songs are often hard to find, considering their wonderful collection of songs. Here, we’ll explore a few songs that you can play as a beginner guitarist.
Beginner Beatles: Let’s Start Simple
It goes without saying that The Beatles were as revolutionary to society just as much as smartphones are now. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison all changed the way we thought about and listened to music.
Being a beginner guitarist can be daunting, there are so many songs to learn in what feels like so little time. Don’t worry though! There are plenty of chart topping hits that aren’t difficult to play. Furthermore, they’ll help you on you guitar playing journey.
So, sit back, relax, and take notes from this rundown of beginner Beatles songs. Here, we’ll be comprising chord progressions with riffs. Overall, helping you on your way to becoming a more accomplished guitarist.
Love Me Do
The eighth track from their debut album, Please Please Me, Love Me Do is a fantastic beginner Beatles song to start with. Benefiting our early chord shapes and changes.
A lot of songs from the late 1950s and 1960s contained just a few simple chords, and had some arguably nonsense lyrics along the lines of boy meets girl. And this is no exception!
Here, we’ve got some nice bright and open chords, G, C and D major. A real benefit of this track is that the verse simply alternates between the G and C chords. Allowing you to work on what can be tricky chord changes.
Please Please Me
Our next beginner Beatles song is the title track from the album of the same name. Despite the basic chord work in some of these earlier songs, there can be some tricky riffs across the rest of the album.
This time, we’ll be looking at some of the chords, as well as the intro riff. Accompanying Lennon’s harmonica playing, Harrison follows the melody in the opening bars. For this, it’s best to play with your ring and first fingers, to ensure maximum control and coverage of the required frets.
Moreover, our verse stays largely on an E major chord, before quickly strumming across G, A and B chords. Each of these extra chords needs to be played with the rhythm, one and, to ensure you get the right feel. Also, as beginners, we can play these as power chords.
Day Tripper
Our third beginner Beatles number was released as a double single along with We Can Work It Out. For most guitarists, this was arguably the first Beatles song to grace our fretboards.
Featuring one of the coolest early 60s riffs, this is a must have for any guitarist. This riff is played a couple of times in E, and then moves to A. Very bluesy. If you’re not up for the riff just yet, we can play along with the fab four.
When looking at playing the riff, we want to use a finger per fret rule. Whereby, each finger has one fret to work with respectively. With Day Tripper, our first finger stays on the 2nd fret, second finger on the 3rd fret, and ring finger on the 4th fret.
Paperback Writer
Making our way to the mid sixties, just before the legendary Sgt. Pepper’s album from the following year, the edgy Revolver album housed hits such as Rain, and of course Paperback Writer.
This beginner Beatles song has yet another simplistic chord progression, across just two chords. However, the riff can cause somewhat of a challenge upon first inspection.
For the first time in this list, we’ll be adding some hammer ons. To aid this new technique, you’ll want to bar your first finger on the third fret. Overall, this will save your fingers a lot of unnecessary movement.
Come Together
From the same year that brought you the moon landings, Come Together comes from legendary album, Abbey Road. Any bass players here? If so, we have a full guide on how to play this song on bass guitar.
Our final look into beginner Beatles songs sees us towards the end of the group’s time together. A hard cut psychedelic track compared to some of the others in this list.
Here’s a great opportunity to practise your 12 bar blues. Alternatively, we can play power chords throughout the verse. We’ve also got a cool riff to accompany the bass intro, although this isn’t explicit in the intro. But, it’s still worth playing.
Relevant Gear
Naturally, George and John used a wide variety of instruments across their time in The Beatles. A lot of the genuine guitars are now worth a fortune, however, *Thomann have loads of alternatives and copies of what the Liverpudlians used.
Beginner Beatles: You say you want a revolution?
There we have it. A quick look at some entry level Beatles songs. Despite the simplicity of some of these, there are a lot of tracks that are up there with some of the most complex riffs ever.
Nonetheless, The Beatles really knew how to write catchy songs that have certainly stood the tests of time. What was the first Beatles track that you learnt on guitar? It’d be great to know!
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