Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs

How to Actually Use Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs Without Losing Your Mind

I picked up Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs back when I was busking more out of necessity than choice. Most musicians I know who use it treat it like a bible for quick gigs, and honestly, it holds up pretty well. It's a compilation of sixty tracks with chord charts, lyrics, and sometimes tablature, aimed at people who need something portable and practical rather than some overproduced music theory textbook. The book itself is roughly the size of a paperback novel, which means you can toss it in a guitar case or backpack without things falling apart immediately. Inside, you've got everything from classic folk standards to pop covers, mostly arranged in straightforward I-IV-V progressions. That's the point. You're not going to impress the local music critic with your playing, but you will get through a three-hour set without constantly flipping pages or hunting for chords.

Getting Started with Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs

Start by skimming the table of contents and sorting the songs into categories you actually need. The book doesn't organize everything by difficulty, so that's on you. I separate mine into "crowd pleasers," "backup songs," and "never play these again." It sounds callous, but after a while you learn which numbers make people put down their drinks and which ones make them look at their phones. Work through the chord charts methodically. Read the progression, then play it. Don't skip that second step. I see too many people just scan through the pages and think they know the material because they recognize the song title. They don't. You won't know the transitions until your fingers have actually made the shapes more than once. Give each song maybe ten minutes on a bad day, twenty on a good one. That's roughly how long it takes to get comfortable enough to perform without thinking about where your hand needs to be. Practice in the same environment where you'll actually be performing if at all possible. If you're playing open mics, do it in the venue before they open. If you're doing street performance, stand on the sidewalk and play. The acoustics and lighting matter more than you'd expect, and some chords feel completely different under fluorescent lights than they do in your living room.

There is a download option floating around online for the digital version, though I haven't verified whether it's official or pirated. If you want the digital copy, search for Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs PDF and you'll find a few sites hosting it. Just be aware that the formatting on some of those files is absolutely terrible. I've seen versions where the chord diagrams are misaligned and the page numbers don't match the table of contents. If you're going digital, make sure the file renders correctly before you rely on it during a gig. One specific problem I ran into fairly recently involved the song "Wagon Wheel." The chord chart in the book lists it in the key of G, but the recorded version most people know is actually in D. If you play it in G as written, you'll be way too high for most vocalists, and anyone who's heard the original will notice immediately that something sounds off. My workaround was simple: I transposed the whole chart down using a capo on the fifth fret and read it as if it were in D. That kept the fingerings familiar while putting the pitch in a range that actually works for singing. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out once I realized what was happening, but it's the kind of thing that can wreck a set if you don't catch it. The real strength of this book isn't the quality of every arrangement. Some of the chord progressions are simplified to the point where they barely match the actual songs, and a few of the tab sections look like they were typed up by someone who didn't really know what they were doing. What it does well is giving you a large pool of recognizable material in a format that doesn't require serious music reading skills. You can pick it up, find a song, and start playing within five minutes. That's valuable when you're learning or when you just need something reliable.

I'd also recommend pairing this with a cheap tuner and a metronome app. Neither of those things is fancy, but together they'll expose every timing issue in your playing faster than anything else. I spent about six months using only this book and never thought about rhythm very hard. Then I started practicing with a metronome and realized I was dragging on half the songs without even noticing. Adding that one tool cut my practice time for solid rhythm from about forty minutes down to fifteen, which is roughly where it should have been to begin with.

What the Book Gets Wrong and Where It Fails

The biggest limitation is that this isn't a comprehensive resource. Sixty songs is fine for a small set, but if you're playing regularly, you'll run out of fresh material quickly. The arrangements also tend to favor acoustic guitar-centric setups, so if you're playing electric or working with a band, a lot of those charts will need modification. I've rewritten nearly half the songs in the book just to make them work in a fuller arrangement, and some of them still didn't end up sounding right. The lyric sections are usually accurate, but occasionally they're wrong or incomplete. I caught at least three songs with incorrect verses, which matters more than you might think if you're trying to sing along and your brain automatically fills in the correct lyrics. The dissonance between what you remember and what's on the page can throw off your timing in a live setting. Always cross-reference with a reliable source if you care about accuracy. If you're looking for something more thorough, Hal Leonard's Guitar Chord Songbook or Fretted Instruments' Official Songbooks tend to have better editorial oversight, though they cost more and are less portable. For casual players and buskers who need something lightweight and cheap, Street Songbook Sixty Favorite Songs does the job well enough. Just don't treat it as gospel truth and you'll be fine.