Easy Popular Songs using D, G, A

That's a basic I IV V progression. You could teach them any song based on a 12 bar blues pattern and transpose it into D. Chuck Berry tunes, for example, Buddy Holly, Beatles. (Maybe play around with transposed versions of "Back in the USSR", or "Revolution". Teach them to play a B5 and you could teach them "Come Together".

You can take any song, in G and transpose it. That opens up about 90% of all C&W songs.

As Musenfreund says, you can take just about any 12-bar blues song and transpose to D.

Bad Moon Rising
Margaritaville
Back Home Again - John Denver

I posted Crying Time by Buck Owens to the easy song index awhile back. It's G,D,A, A7, D7
Anybody Goin' To San Antone is easily transposed to D, A, G
Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys D, A7, G
Put Your Sweet Lips A Little Closer To The Phone D, D7, A, A7, G

We are talking 13 year old's not 43 year old's. Is anybody listening to top 40 radio to identify the blues based tunes or tunes being sampled on the hits that kids are listening to now? I'm not otherwise I would name songs, other then the popular songs of my youth. As a start I would say nothing older the a 2000 release date.

Here are a couple more:

Keith Urban http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/urban-keith/stupid-boy-10532.html

Taylor Swift - http://www.allcountrytabs.com/tabs/swift-taylor/youre-not-sorry-16638.html - need to add Bm, though

Counting Crows - Hangin' Around - http://www.tabpower.com/s3799.html - transpose from F C G

Almost any song can be boiled down to three chords, and once you've done that it's quite easy to transpose them into D major. They might not always fit perfectly, but they'll work.

A :-)

Twist and Shout - The Beatles
La Bamba aswell

Breakfast at Tiffany's is one I love playing, it only uses D, G and A so shouldn't even need transposing! If they learn a C too (or if you can fit it in/extra interest) Knocking on Heaven's Door is nice. I've currently done these myself and I started about a month ago, so it should be quite doable! I'm pretty glad you're taking steps to get those kids motivated!

Maybe Beatles? Here comes the sun uses D,A,E7 & G. Also Yellow submarine is good as it only uses G,D,A & Em, but it gets a bit tedious after playing it over and over. Also don't forget Let it be G,D,Em,C. The Beatles are great for simple, fun 3/4/5 chord songs. Love twist & shout! Twist and Shout - The Beatles
La Bamba aswell Here comes the sun is good though, if your students are into that kind of stuff. There is also With or without you, but that uses Bm aswell. If you could teach them Bm, then I'm sure you could teach them that. The chords are D,A,Bm,G. You can also do other stuff with the same chords as With or without you. Check out a band called The Axis of Awesome, they did a song called 4 Chords, which is basically 65 songs, using just 4 chords. Pretty neat.

Maybe Beatles? Here comes the sun uses D,A,E7 & G. Also Yellow submarine is good as it only uses G,D,A & Em, but it gets a bit tedious after playing it over and over. Also don't forget Let it be G,D,Em,C. The Beatles are great for simple, fun 3/4/5 chord songs. Love twist & shout! Twist and Shout - The Beatles
La Bamba aswell Here comes the sun is good though, if your students are into that kind of stuff. There is also With or without you, but that uses Bm aswell. If you could teach them Bm, then I'm sure you could teach them that. The chords are D,A,Bm,G. You can also do other stuff with the same chords as With or without you. Check out a band called The Axis of Awesome, they did a song called 4 Chords, which is basically 65 songs, using just 4 chords. Pretty neat.

Good answer. If you know the I-IV-V progression (D G and A in this case) all you need to do is add the VI minor (Bm in this case) and it opens up a whole new world and a few thousand more songs! D, A, Bm, G...With Or Without You, by U2 springs to mid in that key. It's also the easiest bass line in the history of basslines......
G |---------------------------------------------------------------------|
D |---------------------------------------------------------------------|
A |-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-----------------------------------------------------|
E |-----------------5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-|

You can use those same four chords in many different keys...G, Em, C, D.....C, Am, F, G....A, F#m, D, E.....

:D :D :D

Vic

old crow medicine shows wagon wheel is after 2000 i still don't know how many middle schoolers would recognize the song but its G D Em C. and the whole song follows the same strum pattern.