reading notes need help

Short answer: Yes, someone can.

Long answer: Yes, but you're going to have to be specific about what you want to learn.

There are at least 3 different notations commonly used for guitar:

1) Standard Notation. This is what's referred to as "music" when someone asks you, "Can you read music?" It contains information about note pitch, note duration, tempo, key, and dynamics (volume, stacatto, slur, etc..). It's not as hard as it looks, really. It will never hurt you to learn how to read music.

2) Tablature. Guitar tablature (tab) is the most commonly used format on the internet to exchange guitar music. It looks a little like music (glyphs on lines), but it contains information about <i>which frets to play on which strings</i>. Tab (ususally) doesn't give you information about note duration, it assumes you know the song you're trying to play.

3) Chord Sheets. Chord sheets, or "cheat sheets", such as are found here on chordie.com, give lyrics and chord changes. It's assumed you know or can figure out the chord fingerings (chordie gives you diagrams to help - but that's not always how the song is actually played). Chord sheets are great because they can get you playing and singing recognizable songs long before you're ready to play leads.

There are a number of beginning guitar sites out there. I direct you to my <a href="http&#58;&#47;&#47;squidoo.com/beginningguitar" target="_blank">beginning guitar page</a>. Oh. And I don't know "American Idiot" but I know it's on ActionTab. I might wait on "Johnny B. Goode" if I were you. It's not exactly a beginner's song.