What was the first song you learned on your main instrument?

I first learned to play on a baratone Uke and it was songs like, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore", "Green Green, It's Green They Say" and other sing along campfire songs.

The fiirst song I learned on guitar was "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey", then probably "Louie, Louie" or "Wild Thing" then... "I Can See For Miles".
I used to plug into both channels of my Silvertone tube 1485 and play te WHO power chords... the 1485 had two OTs and had 6x10s. I had a VOX  "Y" cord and used it to run both channels, It didn't change the tone like a Marshall it just got REALLY loud... probably why my ears ring all the time. Someone once told me they could hear it at a store near about a mile away... I was playing inside... of course sometimes i'd crack the window open, lol.
So.. what song did you first learn on your instrument, the song you learned because you liked it, not something some teacher taught you when you were a kid. I sure wish I still had  that amp and the '67 Tele. I traded the Tele and someone stole the amp from a club in the early 70s... now they are too expensive but they are just two Twin Twelves with different speakers and a bigger PT. I may get one of them..

J

Good days huh Spacey.... it was fun trying to be cool, lol.

jbow
Good days huh Spacey.... it was fun trying to be cool, lol.

LOL...don't know how cool I was but it was non-stop from then
until '86 when it just wasn't fun anymore.
Sure made for some great memories....best of times, worst of times I've learned.

Can't remember what the first song I learned was, but I learned to play lead guitar by painstakingly copying the solos off of Metallica's Kill 'Em All. Very slowly. This was before I even learned a scale. Finally learning scale patterns was a huge revelation. 

Back in the late 50s when I first started piano lessons there was a widely-used piano primer series for beginning students.  The first piece in the book was "From a Wigwam".  This was probably the first piece played by 50% of piano students in the US at that time.
 
It's apperantly still in the books.  You can see some recent videos (posted by proud parents no doubt) on you-tube, and it's appauling just how pathetically bad some of these "performances" are.

I two Am still working on the Rolling Stones song Satisfaction witch is the 1st song I ever almost learned. At the moment I Am playing Plush by Stoned Temple Pilots

My cousin played a little bit of guitar and taught me how to play a very basic version of Twist and Shout when I was 6 or 7 IIRC.
 
Then some arsehole friend of my parents smashed my guitar during a party so a few years passed before I could get a new guitar, an electric this time. I was 12. I cannot remember the exact first song, but I'm pretty sure it was something off of Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil.
 
My first band's repertoire consisted of nothing but songs from that album... 

The theme to Beverly Hills Cop... well the main riff. I was visiting my mom and she had a dilapidated El Degas acoustic guitar that had wicked high action and three half rotten strings on it. I started messing around on it and figured out the melody line on one string. She gave me the guitar to take home with me and eventually I talk my dad into getting me some lessons... which were really expensive and pretty much useless. Like $30 for a half hour to be shown one... string... at... a... time. Eventually my uncle loaned me his tele copy and Fender Vibrato Champ (great guy... got himself killed riding his motorcycle... sad). Then I started learning real songs. Earliest ones were Stairway (so cliche but I swear I didn't torture music store employees with it), Sweet Child of Mine, One (Metallica), Dee (Randy Rhoads). Crap like that. Some of the older skids at school started inviting me over to jam (and watch them get drunk) and I learned some Ozzy tunes and other metal stuff. The most challenging though was Edgar Winters Frankenstein... but the Overkill version.
 
Then there were the cheesy ballads the girls used to ask me to play. Patience, More Than Words, To Be with You (Mr. Big)...
 
It was all pretty horrendous. Being a metal/rocker kid in the late 80's early 90's in a small town without much exposure to underground stuff led to some terrible musical decisions... however I learned to play and as I got older always got asked to join the cool guy bands. When I hit the big city I may have been a massive cheeseball but I still got gigs and eventually my horizons broadened.
 
Fin.

Wipeout on drums.
This not the original but fun to watch:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ms3t_the-ventures-wipeout-killer-live-ve_music
 
Rimshot
 

spacealf
gggggg-gggggg-bbbbbb-cccccc (upper)
ffffff-eeeeee-dddddd-cccccc (lower)
 
play notes together.
 

Had my guitar in hand and played it. lol

gswitz
My old man liked the dead. After playing some drums and bass, I learned ripple on guitar. I can no longer play it very well.

Love that song. That's one of those songs that puts me in a good mood just listening to it. :)

I know riffs, bits, bops, intros, chorus's, 1/2's, 3/4's of lots of songs and even 15/16ths of a song with variable tempo .. but if you mean a full and complete song.. after 40 years then I am still working on the ONE.. I think I will stick to learning my new original compostin  "are we there yet"

I know I was 7, and the year was 1977. I don't remember the name, but it woulda been the first one in the Mel Bay book. :)

'Roxette' by Dr Feelgood I think. I remember my Dad walking past and saying 'Hmm, that almost sounds like music'

It was guitar and my parents were nice enough to pay for my lessons from a guitar instructer. Omitting the obligatory practice songs and scales, my most vivid recollection is learning "Johnny B. Goode". What can be better than starting with that? My instructor was very enthusiastic and really perked my interest at the time.  Opened my eyes to the classic blues scale and future jamming. From there I also remember buying this "Learn the Ventures Guitar" LP (yes, a vinyl long-play record). It had notes and fingering sheets in the album sleeve. Learned "Walk Don't Run", "Tequila", "Pipeline". I noticed you can still get this album today in CD-format.