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.
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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.
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Yes! It was the very basic 12 bar blues rhythm. A friend of my father was teaching me.
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Smoke on the Water, then Iron Man.
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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.
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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.
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Very first was twinkle twinkle little star using cowboy chords. Second was the intro to one.
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This was definitely a very early one for me, as well.
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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!
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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.
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Whatever inspires you right 
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It’s what made it so easy to learn Slayer songs before tabs. No way in hell would I have been able to learn most of Megadeth’s songs and certain Metallica songs, but a lot Slayer’s earlier stuff was great for that. Plus they reused a lot of ideas. Like, if you know South Of Heaven’s intro, you know most of their cleaner and slower riffs lol
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Day 1 one smoke on the water, wrong. Next thing I learned was Paranoid. Then part of Number of the Beast. Pipeline, Sunshine of your Love, Green Manalishi (Priest version), Wipeout, Born to be Wild. Then I found Kill 'em All and learned Crazy Train and it was on from there.
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Me too, I had to push my guitar teacher to show me Nirvana songs. They were the reason I picked up the guitar in the first place!
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i feel so silly admitting this, but i bought a guitar for dummies book, and the two things i learned in it were bourree in e minor just the beginning part, not the second part. the other one in that dummies book was spanish romance… 
although this wasn’t the first thing i learned on a guitar i would say this was the first two fingerstyle things i learned.
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The first thing I was ever taught was the acoustic intro to Stairway to Heaven.
My instructor said “Johnny B. Goode, Hotel California or Stairway to Heaven. Pick one and I’ll teach it to you one step at a time.”
Pretty sure I still have the original tabs/music notes around here somewhere…
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Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health”. Christ, I’m old. : )
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