Songs with only I, vi, IV, and V, but not necessarially in that order.

Cafe Society
1

I’m teaching some folks guitar, and we’ve got G, Em, C, and D down. What songs can I show them (other than Blue Moon)? Preferably something that won’t require too complicated strumming to sound good. I’ve got Puff the Magic Dragon as one example (well, substuting some chords), but I’d like to come up with something more rock/pop-ish, but am having a brain cramp.

2

How about “Please Mr. Postman”? Or “Stay”?

3

Jeez, there must be a million songs that use the I-vi-IV-V7 sequence, it’s a real cliche! Sometimes the IV is iim7, in your case am7. Your folks will have to learn D7, but that’s just as easy as D.

Some songs: “Stand by Me”, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”, “Blue Moon”, “Beyond the Sea”, “This Boy”.

4

Under the Boardwalk!!! (Oh when the Sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof…you gotta love it)

I Feel Fine - G, Bm, C, D

You Really Got a Hold on Me!!! C’mon - Smokey Robinson!!

Look up the tabulature online at alt.guitar.tab…

5

…and “Heart and Soul”, of course!

6

Donna
Needles and Pins, main part
Runaway (not the same order, obviously)
Add a Dm and E and you can play that Bob Seger tune You’re Still the Same
Playing with Fire–Stones
You Drive Me Crazy (in G, it would be G-C-Em-D)
and millions of others. These are just some of the easy ones I know.

7

This will expose me as either a musical genius or a musical moron, but there isn’t a song listed in this thread that I can’t play a dozen different ways, and I can take the chords mentioned in the OP and make up some really interesting tunes …

… but I don’t have a clue what “I, vi, IV, and V” means. I never studied theory at all.

8

Crash course:

I vi IV V(1 6 4 5) refer to chords and their quality, major/minor, as relates to the major scale. These numbers refer to the degree of the scale that the chord is built on. Take the C major scale for example:

C D E F G A B C

I - C E G = CMaj
ii - D F A = Dmin
iii - E G B = Emin
IV - F A C = FMaj
V - GBD = GMaj(as a triad, when you add the 7th F, the chord becomes dominant.
vi - A C E = A min
vii - B D F = Bdim

The chords are built in 3rds which are combinations of Major 3rds and Minor 3rds.