Melody, with Chords: "Love Me Tender" by Elvis Presley

Lesson #624 • Jun 6, 2026

Looking for my strum & sing lesson for this song? View lesson #623 »

About This Lesson

In today’s lesson I’ll take the classic Love Me Tender, and teach you to play the chords & melody at the same time! Unlike my separate strum & sing tutorial for this song, I’ll change things up and use Key of C chords (capo 2) in this lesson. This lets us use slightly easier chord shapes and add the melody notes… which isn’t as simple when we’re in the Key of D.

  • 0:00 Playthrough & Welcome
  • 1:26 Chords: Line 1
  • 5:47 Chords: Line 2 & 3
  • 12:31 Adding Melody: Line 1
  • 17:11 Adding Melody: Line 2 & 3
  • 19:19 Final Tips & Bonus Videos

Instructional PDF 2 pages

Follow along with the print-friendly PDF! It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

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Follow along with the print-friendly PDF!

It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

To download the PDF, upgrade to premium or log in.

Lesson Discussion

Jump in the conversation with other members of the Song Notes community! Post a comment about this lesson, ask a question, or even upload a video of your progress. All skill levels welcome!

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Bonus: Zoomed Playthroughs

Here’s a few extra videos, made in thanks to those supporting me with Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those showing your support, you have my true thanks and appreciation — and I hope you find these additional videos helpful!

Chords Only, Played with a Single Strum

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Chords with Melody Notes (no singing)

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If you’d like to learn a strum & sing version of Love Me Tender matching what’s heard in the Elvis recording, check out lesson #623 linked below! That lesson guides you through the chords & alternating bass notes Elvis uses in his 1956 version. I’ve also included my other Elvis tutorials below.


I also have a collection of melody deep-dive tutorials, similar to what I teach in this lesson. Here’s a list of some of my favorites:

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    Melody, with Chords: "Love Me Tender"

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