The Fall – How I Wrote Elastic Man

The Fall – How I Wrote Elastic Man (Tab)


MP3

Man, those Indie Gods are vengeful. A few hours after the I’m Yours tabs went up, I was laying on the floor unconscious. Long story short: “Hmm, that hurt rather a lot.” – “Now, what am I doing on the floor?” – ambulance – hospital (I’m leaving out the details in the hope you’ll conclude I was doing something sexy and dangerous). In the end, the Indie Gods were merciful and I’m completely fine now. But they have spoken and I promise never again to post anything people might want to play. So here’s a bit of The Mighty Fall.

Intro

howiwroteintro

For the intro I’m picking the E string with my index finger and A string with my middle finger.

Verse

howiwroteriff

This bit doesn’t work too well – it’s a little too wimpy.

For this section I switch my thumb to the E string and index finger to the A string.

Chorus

howiwrotechorus

This is the bit that has seen me wandering around the flat shouting, ” ‘ow I wrote Elastic Man, ‘ow I wrote Elastic Man…”

Can anyone answer me this: Did Frank Sidebottom play the ukulele or did the blow to the head cause some damage the doctors didn’t pick up on?

This post originally contained this: “Elastic Man has been covered by comedian ukulelists Frank Skinner and Frank Sidebottom. You know it was, it really was.” Which contains my favourite type of cultural reference i.e. one only about three people would get. In my mind’s eye I always see Sidebottom with a banjo-uke but there’s very scant evidence on the internets that he played one.

UPDATE: I wasn’t imagining it. Here’s a video of Frank Sidebottom with a banjolele.

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10 Comments

  1. todd June 9th, 2009 6:11 pm

    ‘In the end, the Indie Gods were merciful and I’m completely fine now. But they have spoken and I promise never again to post anything people might want to play.’

    :) ha ha…..love it,

    todd

  2. LonnaB June 9th, 2009 7:49 pm

    It’s good to blame the I’m Yours tab for your demise and not the dangerous sexy stuff.

  3. zym June 9th, 2009 7:54 pm

    sounds like a bad case of Mrazitis – hope you’re ok now.

    Im sure ive see Frank Sidebottom playing a uke, but (rather like a 3rd verse of ‘I wanna be like you’) i think i may have dreamt it too!!

  4. ricardo June 10th, 2009 10:15 am

    Thanks for this tab especially. How about ‘Garden’ or ‘Container Driver’ ?
    Enjoyed The Re-entrants interview too:)

  5. J-Hob June 10th, 2009 12:31 pm

    Brilliant! More obscure British music tabbed please!

    Features one of my favourite Fall lyrics too “The Observer Magazine just about sums it up – self satisfied, smug”.

    Can’t wait to get back from work tonight to try it out, why did I not bring one of my ukes to work today? That’ll learn me.

  6. mictoboy June 10th, 2009 4:20 pm

    Fantastic stuff! this’ll annoy the missus more than my rendition of ‘hot tamale’ :D

    afaik, sidebottom was exclusively keyboards, and the reason he wore the papier mache head was so he could get his mates to stand in for him at gigs and earn more money!

  7. Woodshed June 10th, 2009 8:38 pm

    Todd: Glad you got a good laugh from my pain ;)

    Lonna: It does seem like too much of a coincidence. I’m always sexy and dangerous.

    zym: Success!!! We weren’t making it up.

    ricardo: I’ve got Theme from Sparta FC coming up.

    J-Hob: More to the point, why do you have a job?

    mictoboy: It’s always a pleasure to add to spousal discord.

  8. J-Hob June 10th, 2009 8:46 pm

    It is a very good point, I’m working on the working for myself thing, hopefully one day. You can consider me a fully paid up disciple of the idler ethos though.

  9. Tamster June 11th, 2009 1:07 am

    Sexy and dangerous, eh? Just don’t pull a David Carradine.
    Glad to hear you’re ok.

  10. Woodshed June 11th, 2009 8:55 pm

    J-Hob: Good luck with it. It’s definitely worth doing.

    Tamster: Yeah, I promise to stay away from those sort of shenanigans (mostly).

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