Originally by Wilson Pickett, Mustang Sally has been covered by acts including The Commitments, Buddy Guy and Barry from Eastenders. I based this arrangement on the Wilson Pickett version but there’s elements of the Commitments version in there. As well as a few bits of my own I’ve thrown in.
This is another song where it’s more important to keep the propulsive rhythm of the song going than hit every string exactly as they are tabbed.
The arrangement is all up and down the neck. But there’s nothing too difficult to handle. Just a couple of stretches up to the 12th fret in bars 36 and 45.
This is a rare occasion where I didn’t get tilted trying to record the video. It’s a straightforward and fun song to play on uke. There are many moves up and down the neck but you have plenty of time for them.
The only challenge I had was playing the open C note on the offbeats in the verse (e.g. bar 13). I’m so used to plodding out the thumb-picked notes on the beats it took a bit of practice to rewire my brain.
Tom Odell’s Another Love managed to amass 900 million views on YouTube without me ever having heard it. Luckily, my Patreons are more on the ball than I am and requested it. And it’s a catchy song that fits nicely on ukulele in the original key.
Technique-wise, it’s a song of two halves. For the first half, it’s all fingerpicking. The intensity picks up in the first midtro with the strums coming in during bar 42. Don’t worry about hitting every note exactly as it’s tabbed in the strumming section. It’s more important to keep up the intensity and the feel.
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Possibly because of Eddie Vedder’s affection for the uke, the mandolin song from the Into the Wild soundtrack, Rise fits nicely on the uke without changing the key.
After a fingerpicking intro, the song is almost all strums. With just a few notes picked out. The verses and choruses are straightforward. It’s just the solo and that outro that have a few stretches and jumps up and down the neck.
I’ve kept the solo and the outro fairly faithful to the original, but there’s plenty of space in those to throw in your own ideas.
The biggest challenge here (after spelling the title) is the very rapid delivery of the verse melody. These bits are played with a long succession of hammer-ons and pull-offs. Make sure you pull-off downwards rather than straight off the string. That’ll give it an extra pluck to keep the notes sounding.
Other than that, it’s a fun song to blast through.
Intro: The original intro is unusually long, lasting more than a minute. I’ve chopped it down a little for this arrangement.
The intro (like the whole song apart from the bridge) is just Dm-Bbmaj7. The first 8 bars have the guitar line on top of that. And the next four focus on the bass line.
The final 8 bars focus on the string line. With long notes on the Dm and pizzicato notes on the Bbmaj7. To imitate the pizzicato, I’m muting the strings by gently resting the side of my picking hand on the strings near the bridge.
The transition into bar 17 is made easier by muting the g-string with your thumb instead of playing the whole chord. But you can always add in the g-string, 2nd fret if you’re fast enough.
Verse: The wispy and whispery vocals make the melody a little hard to discern. I’ve tried my best but I’ve taken a few liberties with it. Nothing too tricky to deal with here. Just a trip up to the fifth fret at the end.
Bridge: They go all jazz with it and add a third chord. Still straightforward, though. Just a couple of quick pull-offs to deal with.
Outro: This is where things get tricky. There’s a flurry of notes in bars 46 and 50. I’ve gone campanella with it and involved the g-string in the melody to spread out the notes a little.
