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Home ❯ Songs ❯ Johnny Cash ❯

You Are My Sunshine

by Johnny Cash • Lesson #410 • Jan 12, 2022

Video lesson

Licensed Song Sheet 4 pages

Follow along with my print-friendly guide for this song! It’s available for purchase at Musicnotes.com, the web’s leading provider of licensed sheet music.

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Editor’s notes

Hey friends! Here’s my new video lesson teaching you how to play the traditional classic You Are My Sunshine. I’m basing this on the 2003 version by Johnny Cash, which is played using only 3 chords (A, D, and E) – making it great for absolute beginners. In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show how you can dial up the difficulty a bit if you want to add more complex strumming (e.g. alternating bass notes). I’ll also show two different ways to play the melody riff, tabs included.

Video timestamps:

  • 0:00 Preview & Lesson Summary
  • 1:49 Chord Shapes
  • 3:31 Chord Progression
  • 5:27 Strumming: Basics
  • 7:05 Strumming: Adding Bass Notes
  • 12:12 Melody Riff w/ Tabs
  • 22:03 Full Playthrough

My melody note exercise for this song

I also the practice log video (above), where I show you the live process of working out the melody notes for this song. Here’s a link to my detailed notes for that lesson, which includes a link to the practice worksheet (which is available to my supporters on Patreon).

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