The first time I saw the tabs for a Beatles song I was 10 and the chords scared the crap off of me. Please Please Me had combinations of notes I’d never seen before. I mean, I was a D -G - A guy down on “farmer’s corner” of the guitar neck and EMaj7 and C#m7 were like alphabet soup to me.

In other words there were no easy Beatles songs until Twist and Shout, a memorable 3-chorder. So I stuck with Louis Louis, Hang On Sloopy and Henry the VIII (Herman’s Hermits) until I could work my fingers up the neck. The neatest song I learned up the neck was Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter. I didn’t know what I was playing at the time but the C down to Em, then to Dm and G was a secret I never shared for a while. Mike Turner, a big 16 year-old showed me how to play it up at McDougall Hall (They tore that place down because it was old - 46 years).

The Beatles songs, for the most part, got tougher to learn every album - and they came out fast and furiously! Revolver’s first hit was Eleanor Rigby with Em6 and Em7. This was really tough until Yellow Submarine came out and I jumped on that one.

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But then Sergeant Pepper came out and I got Obladi-Oblada right off the bat - and I was the man. But that was as far as I got with that album for a while. Later on I regained my song-learning rep when I guy in Vancouver taught me Blackbird. I guess that impressed everyone until a guy at a party played Stairway to Heaven.

The point is that The Beatles seemed to be a step ahead of my learning curve! And now that I can play all those “weird” chords no one wants to listen to me! :)