21 Essential guitar Intros that Every Self-Respecting Player Should Know

I’m dovetailing this onto Gary’s post about the same topic.

From my experience these are some songs that I learned years ago and pull out from time to time to reminisce and reflect on my musical influences.

· Stone In Love – Journey – Simple and hard at the same time it’s only 3 chords, but the rhythm is a little more complicated than it sounds when you hear it

· Talk About The Passion – R.E.M. – This was a tune that my cousin introduced me two maybe 20 years ago. It’s a great picking exercise

· Rocky Mountain High – John Denver – more finger picking, this was a tough one for me to learn.

· Round About—YES – Compulsory tune…everyone should know this one. If you don’t go out and learn it.

· Green Grass and High Tides – The Outlaws… a long song with good guitar work

· Welcome to the Jungle – Guns N Roses – Great intro…powerful, and not all that hard to learn

· Josie – Steely Dan – I used to think only really good players could play songs like this one.

· Dream On – Aerosmith – A great stretch, I play it with my fingers rather than a pick

· She’s a Beauty – The Tubes — another catchy rhythm and pretty easy to boot

· Money – Pink Floyd – Sure I know it’s a bass riff, but everyone who plays should learn this one.

· Find Your Way Back – Starship – great 12 string work, there is a recording that Craig Chaquico made that is all instrumental. We used to play it before church services years ago.

· Dance the Night Away – Van Halen — Everyone should have a little Van Halen in their repertoire

· Money for Nothin – Dire Straits – I’m not sure what the drummer is thinking when he’s doing his lead in, but the guitar part makes a whole lotta sense to me.

· Slide – The Goo Goo Dolls – another good picking exercise and a good tune

· Time Stand Still – Rush – See Above

· Fool for the City – Foghat – a Funky song with a great intro

· Down on the Boulevard – Jackson Brown – need I say any more? I totally disagree with this guys politics, but love his music

· Rebel Rebel – David Bowie – Not a big Bowie fan, but this is a catchy riff that was easy to pick up. learn to play this one, and you can play the whole song

· Hell’s Bells – AC/DC – being a SD Padre Fan and a Trevor Hoffman fan as well, I heard this song every time he came out for a save. Check out the Bluegrass tribute to AC/DC it goes along with the Van Halen tribute that came out a few years ago.

· Turn Me Loose – Loverboy— Brad Gillis work here. Pre Night Ranger but classic stuff.

· From the Beginning – ELP— Much like Round About, but played like an open tuning. I like songs in open tunings.

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