Might be a tough question to answer for most, but I’m curious to see if anyone has any recollection.
For me, it was the intro for STP’s Plush. I was 14, and had a friend who played guitar… it looked like an impossible instrument to play at first, but he convinced me to try it and taught that to me fairly quickly, thereby changing my life forevermore. haha
I don’t completely remember, because when I was around 7 or 8 I know my dad taught me some cowboy chords, and even barres. I know I got to the point where I could play “Earth Angel” from Back to the future using barres lol! But I didn’t really stick with guitar as I was more into piano back then.
A few years later, my big sister got really into guitar. Most likely looking up to her, I got back into it. I’d forgotten about anything my dad taught me by then, and I think she showed me how to play “About a Girl” by Nirvana – intro is just Em - G. I do actually recall later her showing me “Plush” too. I was about 11 by this point, so it’s all a bit fuzzy. I know at that age, since I was actually listening to Nirvana and STP I was blown away this stuff was playable and I was hooked. I got a cheap electric for Christmas that year and that was it. It’s been my obsession ever since.
Aqualung by Jethro Tull I think…
Great song, with a fittingly odd verse riff.
One by Metallica in late ‘88.
Me and my circle of friends all wanted to play guitar and/or drums around the same time. We all listened to the same stuff (the big 4 and a few of the better “glam” bands”) and when I was finally old enough to get paid to do odd jobs, I was 12, I started saving. I met a kid from another school at the music store and turns out he had 2 guitars. I went over there and he taught me the intro riff. Since most of my friends parents had some kind of money to buy them their shit, and I was still saving, I ended up teaching a lot of them how to play it over the phone because I’d practice on the guitar I had on layaway at the music store whenever I got the chance.
Early Slayer tunes were next and around the time I finally got my guitar, Dr Feelgood came out. One of them got the guitar book and we all tried to learn it at the same time. I remember being confused by the divebombs at the beginning of Kickstart because I was reading it upside down. I discovered guitar mags shortly after that.
The opening riff to Metallica’s “One” taught to myself via Ultimate Guitar in about 2008 or 09 on my mom’s really crappy acoustic guitar from the 60s that had been left in an attic for years and the action was about an inch off the fretboard. 
Got my own acoustic some months later and started learning metallica and rage against the machine riffs on it.
Speaking of inch high action, I think I had played for about 12 years before I played a truly well setup guitar. And it wasn’t even mine. It was a Tom Anderson at the Mesa/Boogie store on Sunset across the GC. A few teachers at MI had Suhrs, and they’re amazing but the sleekness of the Andersons is untouchable!! When I had my 2 custom guitars made, it was based off one of those but with the same kind of neck as the JS-1.
I wonder how many of us still have our first acoustic? Mine’s been long-term loaned to a friend, it was a $500 Washburn dreadnought. But I still “have” it, sorta.
Mine’s been in a case under a bed for probably 5+ years
I am pretty sure for me it was the Enter Sandman riffs, but I don’t know this for sure, might have been Unforgiven. But since Enter Sandman is just so gnarly I kind of remember it being first.
Yes! It was the very basic 12 bar blues rhythm. A friend of my father was teaching me.
Smoke on the Water, then Iron Man.
You weren’t one of my students, were you? lol!
If people like rock, day 1 they got “smoke on the water” and also “Hell’s Bells”. Probably lesson #2 would have been “Iron Man” just because that’s slightly more to do then the other 2 tunes.
Might have been “Come As You Are” I think. Unplugged really made me want to pick up a guitar, Cobain made it seem like something that maybe a normal guy like me could do.
Very first was twinkle twinkle little star using cowboy chords. Second was the intro to one.
This was definitely a very early one for me, as well.
Wow, you guys are making me feel old! I’m 51 and “Purple Haze” was the first complete song that I ever learned on guitar.
I saw Metallica open for Ozzy in the 80s and I couldn’t stand them and still can’t…but with that said and my personal tastes aside, I’m glad that they inspired a bunch of youngsters to pick up guitar…whatever it takes I say!
I honestly thought this was a universal truth. I was shocked to see all these different answers without either of these mentioned.
You can figure both of these songs out by ear with no experience, and you can play them on one string, so you don’t even have to know how to tune the guitar. (It was mind-blowing when I discovered tuning.)
I guess it’s different now. I had no Youtube, no friends who played, no lessons, no other sources of information than listening to records.
Plus I walked to school in 12 feet of snow, uphill both ways.
Whatever inspires you right 