John Prine – Souvenirs Guitar Lesson Info
Learn how to play John Prine – Souvenirs note-for-note on guitar with our John Prine – Souvenirs Guitar Lesson.
Souvenirs is one of John Prine’s most cherished early songs — a warm, bittersweet meditation on memory, carried by his trademark easygoing fingerpicking.In this lesson, we’ll break down a solo acoustic version that captures the sound and feel of Prine’s original recording almost note-for-note. The only change is a small one that makes a big difference for learning: on the home D chord, Prine’s thumb wanders unpredictably between bass strings, while this version keeps a steady Travis-picked pattern (4–3–5–3) to help you lock into the groove and build muscle memory more easily.
You’ll learn:
- The full chord shapes and progressions
- A flowing Travis-picking accompaniment
- How to shape the phrasing to bring out the tender lyric
- For those who want to go even deeper, the lesson also includes a bonus video and tab showing exactly how Prine plays it — with all the charming, instinctive bass-note variations intact.
It’s a lovely piece to play and sing, and a beautiful introduction to Prine’s brilliant style.
- Difficulty level: Intermediate but easy if you’re familiar with Travis picking
- Barre chords: No
- Thumb over chords: No
- Playing Style: Fingerpicked (Travis picked)
- Tuning: Standard
- Separate Solo: No
- Separate Bass Part: No
Return to Individual Songs page
John Prine – Souvenirs Download Details
The complete lesson contains a lesson video and a performance-standard play-thru video. It also contains the guitar tabs as PDF files and a songsheet with the chords and the lyrics of the lesson (if applicable), also as PDF files.
The videos are MP4 format and will play on PC’s, Macs and most mobile devices.
You’ll receive an email with a Zip file containing a total of 9 files as follows:
- Part 1: Guitar Video Lesson – Intro
- Part 2: Guitar Video Lesson – Verse
- Part 3: Guitar Video Lesson – Chorus
- Part 4: Guitar Video Lesson – Interlude
- Part 5: Guitar Video Lesson – Bonus
- Part 6: Performance-standard Playthru Video
- Part 7: Songsheet with tabs & lyrics
- Part 8: Guitar Tab (Jerry’s Version)
- Part 9: Guitar Tab (John Prine’s Version)
Total Download size: 520.9 Mb
You’ll need to extract the MP4 and PDF files from the Zip file/s to be able to use them and you’ll need software to do so. If you don’t have a Zip program on your PC you’ll need to install one to open the file. I use Peazip which you can get free, here.
If you want to download to an iPad or iPhone you’ll need an app to do so, please read here to know more about it.
John Prine – Souvenirs Lesson Previews
Playthru & Intro
Tab Preview
Chords & Songsheet Preview
Return to Individual Songs page
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