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Hi Mark. Someone (guitargeezer?) shared this link a week ago that helped me a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttSjXUlsuxA
In that video, Tony says you have to print out the lyrics with the chords printed above the words. I do that and play with that piece of paper in front of me. That way I don’t have to worry about remembering the lyrics or the chord progressions, and I can just play. It still misses one piece: the actual melody you’re singing. (or in my case, “singing” lol). For some songs, I have to look up the song on spotify (or your music streaming platform of choice) and listen to it phrase by phrase, then try to reproduce it from memory. It’s a repetitive process. By the time I can play and sing the song fully with the lyrics in front of me, I probably played it dozens of times, so then I can practice by putting not looking at the lyrics.
For instrumental songs (like things that GuitarNick posts) I learn the song by heart like one would learn a poem. Phrase by phrase. I first play through the song a couple of times using the tabs, to get a feel for it. Then, I learn it in small chunks of one to four measures, depending on how complicated it is. That takes a few days. In between, I will listen to the song without playing and see if it aligns with what is stored in my memory. That also helps to keep a big-picture vision of the song. At some point, patterns emerge that help me remember.
This is just my process, I’m not saying it’s the correct one or one that would work for you. When I was a kid and I was being “classically trained” in piano and cello, my brother, who is 12 years older than me and a musical prodigy, told me I have to be able to read a piece of music from the notes sheet and hear it fully in my head before even attempting to play it. So that’s an example of a methodology that did NOT work for me lol.