A New England was originally by Billy Bragg and made more famous by by Kirsty MacColl. This arrangement starts with a riff inspired by Johnny Marr’s intro on Kirsty MacColl’s version. After that, it’s closer to the Billy Bragg version.
I’ve reduced the tempo for my recording. There are a lot of fast notes in it. With the most challenging run being bars 59-60. If you can play that at the tempo of the MacColl version, you’re a way better player than me.
Tempo-wise, this version is most similar to the Lil Green version. But I took inspiration from all three versions.
There are a heap of places in the song for little licks, and I’ve included a solo as well. As always, I recommend using the tab as inspiration for your own ideas rather than slavishly following each lick.
When soloing, I mostly thought in terms of the D blues scale (D – F – G – Ab – A – C – D). In addition to that, I threw in a few notes that crop up in the chords: Db and Bb. And a couple of chromatic runs (in bars 31-32 and the blues turnaround in bars 35-36).
I spend most of my time here posting angry, cynical songs. But I do occassionally deal with matters of the heart. So for Valentine’s Day, here’s a rundown of some of some of my favourite love song tabs. And for those of you celebrating St Skeletor’s Day on the 15th, there are some songs of rejection, scorn and infidelity for you to play between pushing couples holding hands into a puddles.
Valentine’s Day
The Beach Boys – God Only Knows
Definitely the best love song ever written and a strong contender for greatest song of all time.
Losing My Religion cropped up my favourite movie of last year, Aftersun, in an excruciating karaoke scene. Pro tip: when selecting a karaoke song, don’t go for one with an outro that’s just one note over and over at a crawling tempo.
You could make an argument for this being a twisted Valentine song. But I think its violent images of obsessive love make it a good one for St Skeletor’s Day.
Lizzo is leaning a bit too far into the positivity stuff these days for my taste. I prefer her songs that have a bit more “fuck you” mixed in with the self empowerment.
Because the song is just a verse repeated, I’ve arranged it slightly differently each time. First time is just a straight ahead melody and chords. Second time introduces harmony to the melody line. And third time is the harmonised melody with a bit of strumming.
There are a couple of bars of 6/4 in each verse that might trip you up. I found the one in bar 9 quite natural to play. But the one in bar 13 tripped me up much more.
Nirvana’s ever-present quiet-loud-quit-loud dynamics are in full effect on Heart-Shaped Box. So using fingerpicking for the quiet bits and strumming for the loud bits is a must in this arrangement.
All the picking is one-finger-per-string style. That means you’re picking consecutive notes on g- and C-strings (e.g. in bar 5). I’d usually avoid that as it’s less natural than using thumb then index finger. But it works out much better for the rest of the verse.
There are a whole bunch of bends in the song. The trickiest of them are in the chorus where you’re playing chords on the 2nd/3rd fret then bending at the 9th fret. You’re also bending whilst fretting the C-string for an extra challenge.
On the upside, the bends sound better if they’re a little out of tune so you don’t have to worry too much about that.
Intro and Verse: Based on a descending chord progression and a simple melody line. Nothing challenging here.
Chorus: Here’s where the challenge starts. There’s an ascending riff on the C-string going along side the busier melody. I’ve used a bit of campanella style playing to deal with the quick notes.
Solo: Heavily based on the verse with a few extra twiddles. A good place to play around with your own ideas.
I started the Uke Hunt Patreon three years ago and the support of Patreons has made a massive difference for the site. A huge thank you to all the backers. It’s tough times for everyone at the moment and I deeply appreciate you choosing to support the site. With the UK currently circling the drain of history, Patreon supporters have been what’s keeping me and the site up and running.
As a bonus for backers, all Patreons get tabs as soon as the video goes up. And there’s a monthly tab request thread with most tabs now being requests from Patreon. There are also more rewards for higher tiers:
Finally, Tenor level backers ($10 per month and up) get their names immortalised as Medicean-level patrons of the arts along with these exceptional folks:
– Arthur Foley
– Dan
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jeff Otto
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Nick Parsons
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– T S
– Thorsten Neff
I’m back and I’m starting the year how I intend to carry on: with pessimistic miserablism in the form of Garbage’s Only Happy When It Rains.
Verse: Not wasting any time with an intro. Since the melody does a lot of switching between A and G, I’m taking advantage of the re-entrant string and using the open A and G notes. I love how well the bent notes at the fifth fret work here.
Chorus: Switching to a major key for a fairly jaunty chorus melody.
Solo: Nothing too flashy here. If you do want to get flashy, you could replace some of the notes at the third fret at the start of the bars in the second half with notes bent at the second fret. That’s more true to the original but tricky to pull off (particularly on the E chord).
Outro: A bit of stretch here when you’re playing Am then hitting the A-string, 5th fret.
