Beirut/Caetano Veloso – O Leaozinho (Chords)

Beirut/Caetano Veloso – O Leãozinho (Chords)

I would have put have put good money on Beirut cropping up on the new Tribute to Caetano Veloso album alongside Beck, Devendra Banhart and Seu Jorge.

But we still have their cavaquinho cover of Veloso’s O Leãozinho. I based the chords on the Beirut version but the original is pretty much identical.

The cavaquinho is tuned DGBD (higher than the ukulele). So to put it in the same range I’ve written the chords for use with a capo at the 7th fret.

Without a Capo

Beirut/Caetano Veloso – O Leãozinho (No Capo Chords)

It gets fiddly playing the chords with a capo at the 7th fret. So here are the open chords if you don’t want the faff.

Suggested Strumming

For a simple strum you can use this twice for each chord:

d – d u – u

The only place that doesn’t work is with the F – Fmaj7 change. If you want to keep things simple you can just play the pattern once for each of those. Or you can do something similar to the way Beirut play it:

Which sounds like this (slow then up to speed):


Strum

Buy the Caetano Veloso version.
Buy the Beirut version.

Loads more Beirut tabs and chords.

View Comments

17 Comments

  1. Ivy Arch October 23rd, 2012 7:03 pm

    Wonderful, I love this song. I’ll be trying the no-capo version though. Cheers!

  2. Woodshed October 23rd, 2012 10:16 pm

    Ivy: Non-capo is the sensible way to go. I hate sensible.

  3. Felipe Souza October 24th, 2012 1:48 am

    Listening to this music, makes me the happiest brazillian ever… Caetano Veloso and Seu Jorge are one of the bests brazillian musician i’ve ever listen to, Beirut and Devendra Banhart are awesome musicians too… i’m really proud of making part of this country.. Eu amo o Brasil.

  4. jeremy October 24th, 2012 10:10 am

    thank you

  5. Woodshed October 24th, 2012 11:50 am

    Felipe: You are justly proud!

    jeremy: You’re welcome.

  6. deirdrepewty October 24th, 2012 7:22 pm

    Aww, I love you so much for this! It made me so happy to see this that I had to say that. I’ve been trying to get this one down by myself, but you are always such a great help and it’s just nice to see you tab all the stuff I like as if you knew!

  7. Redmond October 25th, 2012 5:48 am

    So is there a certain way I should be tuning my ukulele up without snapping strings? And thanks for giving me the correct key, I couldn’t figure it out for this one…

  8. Woodshed October 25th, 2012 10:10 am

    deirdrepewty: Very glad to help!

    Redmond: Both these ways are in standard tuning. No need to be tuning up.

  9. kian November 3rd, 2012 4:43 pm

    hey am still a bit confused on how to tune my uke this is the tuner i use http://www.get-tuned.com/online_ukulele_tuner.php

  10. Woodshed November 3rd, 2012 8:00 pm

    kian: It’s gCEA. Standard tuning. That tuner is confusing. This one is a lot better.

  11. kian November 6th, 2012 10:49 pm

    thanks again woodshed

  12. Giovana November 6th, 2012 10:50 pm

    yess!!! you are so wonderful, I love this song.

  13. Woodshed November 7th, 2012 12:09 am

    kian: You’re welcome.

    Giovana: Thanks very much!

  14. Nader March 17th, 2013 8:43 pm

    Thank You :)

  15. Woodshed March 17th, 2013 10:41 pm

    Nader: You’re welcome!

  16. JP May 3rd, 2014 12:45 am

    Yeah cool!! I picked up my uke in Canada before I moved to Brazil, so nice to have some brazilian songs to rock out to! (girl from ipanema gives me strumming issues, working on it) I will enjoy the practice and my friends will enjoy the familiar variety, thanks a bunch!

  17. Woodshed May 3rd, 2014 10:08 am

    JP: Thanks! I’m very jealous!

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