ABBA – Dancing Queen
August 28, 2008
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 – although a bit of a nightmare on the uke (thanks to plenty of E majors). The best part has to be the, “See that girl…” section where there’s a move between Ab and A on the G-string for each of the chords.
thanks for this, i grew up on Abba. Explains a lot about my current life i suppose…
How dare you diss Pierce Brosnan’s excellent singing. Every syllable he sings is delightfully epic. “DONNA!!!!!”
I do love a bit of Abba now and then, thanks Al.
i’ve been singing this with my uke for aaaggeees now but your chords work much more nicely ^^,
thanks again
i suppose here would be as good a place as any to ask,
I’m in the process of buying a 30’s banjolele and i wanna change the strings, should i just use standard uke strings?
or are there special ones?
What’s the Esus4 chord?
I once groomed the former cat of one of the ABBA singers.
This has nothing to do with your blog post.
Ed: The beard and the hairy chest, you mean?
Jimmy: Meryl Streep has a decent voice. That’s as much of a concession as you’ll get out of me.
cbf: You’re asking the wrong person, I’m afraid. I haven’t touched a banjolele in my entire life. You’re much better off asking on Ukulele Cosmos or Flea Market Music.
Heather: Oh, bugger. I’ve fixed the chord chart now. Esus4 = 445. Or 4400 if you prefer. Thanks, Heather.
amber: If it was Angnetha’s cat, that’s hugely impressive. If it’s the other one, not so much.
@CBF
I bought a set of Aquila strings for my banjolele from theukuleleshop. When they arrived they were for a ‘low -g’ tuning – which i wasnt quite expecting :\
They look identical to normal Aquila strings as far as i can tell, the only difference being that the ‘G’ is steel & wound.
Personally, reckon you could get away with a normal set of concert strings if you want a high-g tuning
way to go amber!
thanks very much zymeck! ^^,
I love this song.Its timeless.Still makes me feel like I did in the70s when I was trying to be “that guy”.CBF I do have a new banjolele strung with aquilas high g concert. Made a big difference from the crappy strings it came with. I think they would sound good on a vintage one as well.
thanks rob ^^,
just one more payment before i get to take my new banjolele home ^^,
Your welcome cbf .Good luck with the uke
zym and Rob: Thanks for the info. There’s another excuse to buy a ukulele: people keep asking me about banjoleles.
Go for it Al.You?From the land of George Formby.You got to have one!
Rob: The Formby thing is one of the reasons I don’t want to get one. I get too many requests for When I’m Cleaning Windows as it is.
Keep it a secret
amazing song