The song starts out with clean (acoustic) picking. The picking is not too difficult do get with practice. Also, the chord progressions during this part are quite simple and repetitive, so once you are familiar with the first couple of verses you'll be able to play all the rest of the acoustic parts too. They don't vary much at all. Of course, you can also fingerpick the acoustic parts rather than pick them. In the original song it's picked so that's what we show here. But don't let that put you off fingerpicking it instead if you are feeling adventurous!

Intro

The song by starts descending down through the notes of the G major scale along the D string, and constantly picking the adjacent open G string, and fretted D note on the B string. Later in the song this part is used regularly to bridge between the heavier powerchords, so get used to playing it a lot in this song!

After this, pick through the C major, C minor, G major chords.

Repeat this all again from the Descending G major scale part. However the next time, the last G major chord is played slightly differently and an F# is played in the bass. Then the following chords are E minor, B minor, C major, G major (switching to F# in the bass again), E minor, B minor, C major, D major.

Once you can play these sections, you will know all the acoustic parts. They simply repeat for the following verses.

Notice that the electric guitar is then fired up, and still plays out the acoustic intro before rocketing off into some simple chords:

C major - C minor - G5 - intro part again
C major - C minor - G5 - F#5 - E5 - B minor - C5 - D5

Again, once you can do these parts, you'll know the rest of the song.

The solo is very straightforward and easy - just alternating between the high G and B strings at around the 12th fret. Stick at it, work at it regularly, and you'll get it!