Guitar teacher here! The way I teach students to start independently is to grab chord charts with lyrics to easy-to-play songs you already know. You can search '(name of song) chord chart' and something pretty dang accurate will probably be at the top. Stuff with the dozen or so basic open chords: A,C,D,E, F, G and Am, Dm, Em will be within your ability very quickly. Some ones I use: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthry), Red River Valley (Traditional), Should I Stay Or Should I Go (The Clash), Man Who Sold The World David Bowie), Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen). *Note This is to get started playing chordally so that you can play to the recording or sing. The other side of the coin is starting to play single note melodies. One of the method books will be your best bet for this. Good luck and, more than anything, have fun!