Yo Ho! A Pirates Life for Me (Tab)
I get quite a few requests for tabs, but not so many are made by via the medium of blog post. So when Jason requested this tune in his blog, I couldn’t resist.
Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me) was written by George Bruns specifically for the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride in Disneyland (video and mp3 of the full story of the ride and song here). The ride inspired the film franchise of the same name (the first theme park attraction to do so since Barry Island: The Lucky Penny picked up four Oscars in 1973). Inevitably, the success of the film meant a redesign of the ride. You can see Johnny Depp taking the new ride and playing with himself here.
The tune itself is a camped up version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s already fairly camp Dead Man’s Chest. PotC did, however, inspire a more musically worthy project. The film inspired Depp and, director, Gore Verbinski to put together an album of modern interpretations of sea shanties called Rogue’s Gallery
It’s quite a tricky tune to play. You have to play the same note over and over quite quickly. It makes it easier if you divide up the notes between strings (picking the G-string with your thumb). There are a couple of ways to approach it. You could strum the chord with your index finger (and pick the A-string with it too) or you could give each finger a string and pluck them all together (so your ring finger would be picking the A-string). The second option gives you more control but the first will give more rasp to the chords.
’tis a fun tab.