The Beatles – You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away (Tab)

Intro: I did an extended intro based on the verse chords. It’s a little tricky so feel free to adapt it however you like. Or just replace the whole thing with one bar of G like the original.

Verse: First time around, this section is picked (using one finger per string picking). Second time is more loose and strummed with a few notes picked out.

Chorus: The funnest part of the song with a big G chord on the “HEY!”

Solo: Lots of room for your own ideas here too. You could make it as simple as strumming the chords and throwing in a few sus2 and sus4 chords.

Links

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More Beatles tabs
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (Tab)

Here’s a ubiquitous British Christmas stomper.

Intro: Starting off in usual fashion with Eb leading into G major. The Bb note (A-string, 1st fret) suggests G minor so the G major chord is a little surprising.

Verse: I’m fingerpicking this section the first two times it’s played. The third I’m using some strumming particularly on the Gsus4-G bit. You can do that every time if you prefer.

Chorus: The Eb chord crops up again creating discord under the line, “Everybody’s having fun,” and suggesting the Christmas isn’t as merry as claimed. If that was intentional, Noddy Holder is a more nuanced songwriter than I gave him credit for.

Bridge: I had forgotten this section existed. But it does give us the Gm that has been hinted at since the intro.

Links

Buy the original
More Christmas tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Ringo Starr Was Grateful Whenever George Harrison Put Away His Ukulele.

Ukulele Kids Club wins a Mid-America Emmy.

Palestinian Udulele: a mix of oud and ukulele.

Bob Odenkirk tweeted one of my least popular videos.

Last chance to take advantage of the Black Friday tab ebook sale.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– Alana Fiala
– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– 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
– Olga deSanctis
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– T S
– Thorsten Neff

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including November’s: Carly Simon’s Bond theme Nobody Does It Better.

Del Shannon – Runaway (Tab)

Del Shannon’s classic Runaway has been covered a heap of times. Most surprisingly by Kasabian. And mostly recently by me a few hours ago.

Intro and Verse: It starts off straightforwardly in G minor.

Chorus: A switch to G major and a busier melody make for an upbeat chorus. The octaves in 20 and 24 are tricky to play. If you’re struggling, you can play either the top or bottom line alone.

Solo: My version of the solo is only loosely based on the original. There’s plenty of room for making it your own. Bars 37-38 are a pain in the arse to play. But also the best bars in the whole song.

Links

Buy the original
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

If you’re looking to entertain over the festive season, it’s time to start polishing up your holiday tunes and learning a few new ones. Here’s a rundown of everything Christmassy and seasonal on the site.

Christmas eBooks

I’ve written 3 collections of easy Christmas tabs: How to Play Christmas Ukulele, Christmas Ukulele 2 and Christmas Ukulele 3.

You can currently pick up all three on sale for $12 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
2000 Miles – The Pretenders
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Christmas in July – Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Fuck Christmas – Eric Idle
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
I Wish it Was Christmas Today – SNL/Julian Casablancas
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Lumberjack Christmas/Christmases Past – Sufjan Stevens
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Santa Will Find You – Mindy Smith/Tripping Lily
Silver Bells – She & Him
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane/Lily Allen
Space Christmas – Allo Darlin
Suddenly it’s Christmas – Loudon Wainwright III
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

All I Want for Christmas is You – Mariah Carey
Away in a Manger
Carol of the Bells
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver
Christmastime Is Here (from Charlie Brown)
German Christmas Carols
Happy Xmas (War is Over) – John Lennon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Little Drummer Boy
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence – David Bowie
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Baby
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
Various – Wilfried Welti’s Musikalisches Naschwerk für Solo Ukulele
We Three Kings
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland

Harry Styles – As It Was (Tab)

I hadn’t heard Harry Styles’s As It Was before it cropped up as a Patreon request and my hopes weren’t high. Turns out it’s a pretty great song. Very catchy with a melancholy edge.

Intro: A bit of Take On Me action with this riff. Once the chords kick in at bar 2, prioritise keeping the energy up over hitting exactly the right strings. As long as you’re holding the chord, it’ll sound great.

Verse: Mostly one finger per string picking here but I’m alternating index and middle finger to pick the C notes in bars 7 and 11.

I snuck in a little lick at the end of bar 8 to fill up the bar. You’re welcome to use your own ideas here.

Chorus: Just strumming for the chorus. The trickiest part is hitting the F chord just before the end of bars 15 and 19. Don’t worry if you hit some of the open strings when you play the A-string, 7th fret the note before.

You could always extend that note at the 7th fret and hit the F chord at the start of bar 16/20. I doubt anyone will notice.

Bridge: A whole mess of notes here. Definitely need some alternate picking to get through it.

Links

Buy the original
More pop tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

R.E.M. – Endgame (Tab)

An instrumental track from R.E.M.’s classic Out of Time.

Intro: Starting off with thumb and two finger picking.

I love the way this riff works with open strings on the uke. So much so, I considered inserting into the song itself. In the end, I saved it for the outro.

Verse: By far the hardest part of the song comes with the big jumps down the fretboard in bars 13-16. Well worth practicing these bars by themselves until you’ve got them down.

Chorus: Switching to one finger per string picking and moving into strums at the end of the chorus.

Bridge: This section is just chord strumming.

Links

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More REM tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sometimes Always (Tab)

Tabbing a Mazzy Star song inspired to me to bash together this Hope Sandoval featuring Jesus and Mary Chain song. And “bash” is an accurate description. It’s a route 1 arrangement with just strumming and melody.

Links

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More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Mazzy Star – Fade Into You (Tab)

By far the most challenging aspect of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You is the timing of the melody. Thanks to Gen X disaffection, the melody keeps coming in later than you’d expect.

In the verses, you’d expect the melody in bars 7, 11 and 19 to hit right at the start of the bar (as it does in bar 15). Instead, it comes in a quaver late (or eighth note if you prefer).

In the chorus, it’s similar in bars 23, 27 and 31. But I found these even trickier to get the hang of.

No such problems in the solo, though. Here you can mess around however you please using the chords as a basis for your twiddling.

Links

Buy the original
More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

It’s Uke Hunt t-shirt season again! Most years around this time I do a run of t-shirts. This year you can buy them from either the US or the UK:

Pre-order now from US

Pre-order now from the UK

I’m using Teespring again. If you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 30th November.

I’ve been using Teespring for many years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality and is still looking good after many years of wearing it.

For more information on the shirts and the system take a look at Teespring’s FAQ.