Come Together

download the lead sheet with lyrics for “come together”

“Come Together” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on the band’s 1969 studio album Abbey Road. It was also a double A-side in the United Kingdom with “Something”, reaching No. 4 in the UK charts, as well as No. 1 in the Billboard Hot 100.

The song has been covered by several other artists, including Ike & Tina Turner, Aerosmith, Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, Joe Cocker, Arctic Monkeys, and Gary Clark Jr.

In early 1969, John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, held nonviolent protests against the Vietnam War, dubbed the Bed-ins for Peace. In May, during the Montreal portion of the bed-in, counterculture figures from across North America visited Lennon. Among the visitors was the American psychologist Timothy Leary, an early advocate of LSD whom Lennon admired. Leary intended to run for Governor of California in the following year’s election, and he asked Lennon to write him a campaign song based on the campaign’s slogan, “Come Together – Join the Party!” The resulting chant was only a line long: “Come together and join the party”. Lennon promised to finish and record the song, and Leary later recalled Lennon giving him […]

Paul2026-05-02T11:10:56-04:00

Ladies of the Canyon

Use the downloadable tabs and the attached mp3 file & video to understand how to play “Ladies of the Canyon” for solo guitar.

Ladies of the Canyon is the third studio album by the Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on Reprise Records in 1970. It peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified platinum by the RIAA. The title makes reference to Laurel Canyon, a center of popular music culture in Los Angeles during the 1960s, where Mitchell lived while she was writing the album. Specifically, Mitchell lived and wrote at 8217 Lookout Mountain Avenue, the house which is the subject of Graham Nash’s “Our House”. The album includes several of Mitchell’s most noted songs, such as “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Woodstock” and “The Circle Game”.

The album is notable for its expansion of Mitchell’s artistic vision and its varied song topics (ranging from the aesthetic weight of celebrity, to observation of the Woodstock generation, to the complexities of love). Ladies of the Canyon is often viewed as a transition between Mitchell’s folky earlier work and the more sophisticated, poignant albums that were to follow. In particular, “For Free” foreshadows the lyrical leitmotif of the isolation triggered by success that would be elaborated upon in For the Roses and Court and Spark. The sparse, alternative-tuning laden sound of later records comes to the forefront on […]

Paul2026-04-19T09:42:11-04:00

Our Song

“Our Song”
is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the third single from her debut studio album, Taylor Swift (2006). She wrote “Our Song” for a high school talent show during ninth grade and included it in the album after it became popular among her classmates. The lyrics are about a young couple using regular events in their lives to create their own song. Produced by Nathan Chapman, “Our Song” is an uptempo banjo-driven country track incorporating fiddles and drums. Big Machine Records released it to US country radio on September 10, 2007.

Music critics lauded Swift’s songwriting on “Our Song” for incorporating conversational lyrics and a memorable hook. It featured on Rolling Stone‘s 2019 list of the best country songs by female artists since 2000. Peaking atop Hot Country Songs for six weeks, the single made the then 17-year-old Swift the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one single on Hot Country Songs. “Our Song” peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It peaked at number 30 on the Canadian Hot 100 and was certified platinum by Music Canada.

Download the “Our Song” PDF with tabs

Use the downloadable tabs and the attached mp3 file & video to understand how to play “Our Song” by Taylor Swift for solo guitar.

Paul2026-04-19T14:12:17-04:00

Hurt

“Hurt” is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from its 1994 studio album The Downward Spiral—where it is the closing song on the album—written by Trent Reznor. It was subsequently released on April 17, 1995, as a promotional single from the album, wherein it was issued straight to radio. The song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996. In 2020, Kerrang! and Billboard ranked the song number two and number three, respectively, on their lists of the greatest Nine Inch Nails songs.

In 2002, American country singer Johnny Cash covered “Hurt” to commercial and critical acclaim. The related music video is considered one of the greatest of all time by publications such as NME. Reznor praised Cash’s interpretation of the song for its “sincerity and meaning”, going so far as to say “that song isn’t mine anymore”.

“You don’t have to change that much for it to make a great deal of difference. A few simple disciplines can have a major impact on how your life works out in the next 90 days, let alone in the next 12 months or the next 3 years.” – Jim Rohn

Paul2026-04-16T16:16:56-04:00

Long train runnin’

If you’re a serious student of guitar (like me) you might consider playing extemporaneously over a backing track as part of you practice regimen. It doesn’t have to be complicated- the best ones to get started with are simple, like a 1/4/5 change you can run your blues riffs over. Don’t forget to experiment with your phrasing, voicing and texture. “Texture” in music refers to how melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements combine and interact, creating the “feel” or density of the sound, like layers in fabric, described as thin/thick, light/heavy, or sparse/dense. In practical terms, that might mean playing more than one note at a time, bending a note while holding another one, or finding the note you want an octave above or below your current position. Really though, the list of things you can do to add texture to your playing is endless.

If this sound interesting to you, just reach out. I do a free half hour online lesson to see if we are a good fit.

Paul2026-04-16T16:17:27-04:00

Drive (part 1)

Download the Drive PDF

“Drive (For Daddy Gene)” is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Alan Jackson. It was released in January 2002 as the second single from his album, Drive. It reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks in May 2002 and also peaked at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song is dedicated to Alan’s father, Eugene Jackson, who died on January 31, 2000. In the song, Alan recalls as a child he and his father driving around the countryside in an old beat up truck that they fixed up together, as well as a boat they would drive around the lake. In the final verse, Alan talks about sharing his childhood experiences with his daughters and letting them drive his Jeep around their pasture.

This song uses a standard 1/5/6/4 chord progression in B. The B major scale is: B, C#, D#, E, F# G# A# and B so it has 5 sharps. The 1/5/6/4 progression then for B will be B (1) , F# (5) , G#m (6, the 6th diatonic chord of the major scale is a minor) and E (4).

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Paul2026-03-09T15:42:21-04:00

Growing Up (part 1)

Download the PDF here:Growing Up

“Growin’ Up” is a song by American musician Bruce Springsteen from his 1973 album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J..

It is a moderately paced tune, concerning an adolescence as a rebellious New Jersey teen, with lyrics written in the first-person. The lyrics feature a chorus that is progressively modified as the song continues, with the first chorus being “I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said ‘Sit down,’ I stood up,” while the second chorus switches to “clouded warmth…’come down,’ I threw up” and the third finishes the song with “mother breast…’pull down,’ I pulled up.”

An acoustic version of the song, part of Springsteen’s 1972 audition for CBS Records, appears on Tracks, 18 Tracks, and Chapter and Verse.

During the Born to Run tours and following Darkness Tour, Springsteen often performed an extended version of this song, extending it with a long, sometimes exaggerated and/or fictional biographical narration of his youth and his passion for guitar playing.

The song was featured on the soundtracks of the films Big Daddy (1999) and Gracie (2007).

David Bowie recorded a version of this song in the early stages of the Diamond Dogs sessions with Ronnie Wood on lead guitar. In 1990 this was released as a bonus track on the Rykodisc reissue of his Pin Ups album, and in 2004 it appeared on the […]

Paul2026-04-16T16:17:52-04:00

Judas (Part 1)

Download the PDF here: Judas beginning, 2nd week

“Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.” – Joe Pass

Paul2026-04-16T16:18:18-04:00

Bb Blues

Part of my practice regimen is to play extemporaneously – that is, just by ear- over a backing track, and here’s an example of that. Andy Usher’s tracks are just excellent for this kind of thing, and if money’s tight, he has lots of quality tracks that are available for free. You can hear his stuff on YouTube, Patreon and BandCamp. here’s his site: https://www.andyusher.com/ausher-tracks

If you’re interested in playing blues guitar, just reach out! First lesson’s free.

“I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play every day and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it and you need them to hear it.” -James Taylor

Paul2026-04-16T16:18:44-04:00

First Principles

January 16, 2026

First Principles

This article is aimed at a very specific audience- that is, guys who play guitar and want to get better at it. There are a lot of guys like us! If that’s you too, well, you’re in my tribe because that’s what I like to do too.

But here’s the thing. The guy that I’m talking about in my audience wants to get better but he’s not exactly sure how to do that. He keeps going back, over and over to the same stuff that he already knows. He knows it really well! Man, does he know it well! But he’d like to try something different.

Maybe he’s looking at online video or a guitar lesson program or an online teacher or an in-person teacher… but it’s hard to find a good fit. That might be because half of the fun of playing guitar is teaching yourself how to play a tune! And sorry -being told how to do something is not the same as figuring it out for yourself. Teaching yourself how to play is the best, and you know what? I can help you figure out how to do that.

As a guitar student myself, I always thought […]

Paul2026-04-16T16:19:11-04:00

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First Principles