ABBA – Dancing Queen (Chords)
I can’t think of any fictional character less likely to take up the ukulele than James Bond. He takes himself far too seriously. Former Bond, Pierce Brosnan though is a ukulele player. I think it might be part of his long standing attempt to get away from being Bond. His latest stab at it is appearing in the ABBA based musical Mamma Mia (even though his singing leaves a little to be desired). I’m pretty sure there’s no uke content in the film, but it seems as good an excuse as any for a bit of ABBA ukulele.
Dancing Queen has a really great chord progression. One of the greatest if you ask me. I love the,“See that girl…” section where there’s a move between Ab and A on the G-string for each of the chords.
But it is a bit tricksy in places. In the fast changes between E and F#m you can replace E with E6 (i.e. all strings barred at the 4th fret). And I haven’t notated it but I’d recommend using the more common F#m 2120 in the intro and on, “Oh yeah” in the chorus.
Suggested Strumming
Strum #6 from the book:
d – d u – u d u
The only problem is sometimes you’re changing chords within that strum.
So where you have those quick moves in the, “See that girl…” section you play the first chord on the first down strum then the rest of the strum on the second chord e.g. do d – on Amaj7 then d – u d u on the A.
On the F#m – A in the intro and on, “Oh yeah”. you the first two down strums on the F#m and the rest on A.
To demonstrate that here’s how the intro and bridge sound:
thanks for this, i grew up on Abba. Explains a lot about my current life i suppose…