Damon Albarn – Mr Tembo (Chords)

There’s some sort of amorphous Britpop 20th Anniversary going on at the moment with people celebrating and denigrating it.

Added to that, Damon Albarn has just released a ukulele song about an orphaned elephant. So I didn’t have any choice other than to write it up.

Alert: There are large swathes of this song where I’m not sure what’s happening in the lyrics so don’t trust those.

Suggested Strumming

This strumming pattern is a bit involved. Here it is:

You can do the exact same strum for the D – F – C bit.

Make sure you stop the strings from ringing on the rests (by releasing the pressure on your fretting hand and muting the strings with your strumming hand).

I’ve included the little descending bit at the end of the C chord. But if you find it too fiddly you can just play a straight C chord there.

Here’s how it sounds slow then up to speed:

MP3

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the ukulele solo played in the live Kimmel version. It’s similar to the keyboard solo on the record. But different enough to screw you up if you try to play along with it.

Damon Albarn – Mr Tembo (Chords)