It’s here. With cheer. It’s the same every year. It’s the Christmas UkeTube.
Tracklist
Tripping Lily – Santa Will Find You
The Mad Tea Party – Oh Shit, It’s Christmastime!
Eliel Carvalho – Jingle Bells
The O’Pears – Bleak Midwinter / River
Vinícius Vivas – White Christmas
Memphis Ukulele Band – Holidays Ain’t the Same (Without You)
Allison Young – The Christmas Waltz
Kamakakehau Fernandez – Christmas Luau
Leftover Cuties – Christmas Time Is Here
Ukulele Solos – Fairytale of New York
I was a massive Oasis fan around the time of Definitely Maybe. So it’s a surprise it’s taken me this long to get around to doing one of their songs. Don’t Look Back in Anger took on a new significance after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 when it was spontaneously sung at the memorial.
The song is standard Oasis fare with heavy references/blatant pilfering from the Beatles in both the lyrics and the music. Plus a bunch of major pentatonic noodling. I skipped the guitar solo (since it’s meandering and not particularly memorable). But I have included the widdles at the end of the pre-chorus and chorus, which add to the song and are fun to play.
Time for the annual Uke Hunt Christmas quiz time-waster. The rules are perennial as the winter and ancient as the bison.
– Grab a pen and paper
– Display knowledge.
– Check the answers here (no peeking).
If you’re reading by email or feed reader you may need to click through to the post to see everything.
What chord are these? (All the chords are either major, minor or 7. Nothing more complicated than that.)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Click the photo for a bigger version (it’ll help)
6.
By SpecGroup
7.
By Dennis Amith
8.
9.
By Eric Golub
10.
By SpecGroup
Who first released the songs these ukulele orchestras are covering?
11. Horndean Ukulele Group
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12. Tenrikyo `Ukulele Orchestra
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13. Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
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14. Peninsula Ukulele Group
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15. Grand Old Uke of York
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Which celebrity is displaying their uke?
16.
a) Madonna
b) Kylie
c) Cher
d) Adele
17.
a) Tori Belachi
b) Grant Imahara
c) Jaime Hyneman
d) Adam Savage
18.
a) Matt LeBlanc
b) David Schwimmer
c) Paul Rudd
d) Matthew Perry
19.
a) Dana Carvey
b) Mike Myers
c) Rob Lowe
d) Alec Baldwin
20.
a) Neil Finn and Lorde
b) Sam Neill and Rose Matafeo
c) Bret McKenzie and Kiri Te Kanawa
d) Taika Waititi and Jacinda Ardern
Which songs – oft covered on ukulele – are these lyrics from?
21. The bees are buzzin’ in the tree / To make some honey just for me / When you look under the rocks and plants / And take a glance at the fancy ants
22. Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain / We all have sorrow / But if we are wise / We know that there’s always tomorrow
23. Oh, the weather outside is frightful / But the fire is so delightful / And since we’ve no place to go
24. Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you something / I think you’ll understand / When I’ll say that something
25. Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’ / And it sounds just like a song / I want more berries and that summer feelin’ / It’s so wonderful and warm
Past Quizzes
Christmas Quiz 2019
Ukulele Quiz 2018
Ukulele Quiz 2017
Ukulele Quiz 2016
Ukulele Quiz 2015
Ukulele Quiz 2014
Ukulele Quiz 2013
Ukulele Quiz 2012
Ukulele Quiz 2011
Ukulele Quiz 2010
Ukulele Quiz 2009
Probably my favourite Christmas song without swears in. And a fitting song for a Christmas where so many people are separated from their loved ones.
The first time I heard this song was a ukulele cover by Ballard C Boyd (who is now a director and producer for Colbert).
The arrangement is dead simple so you can focus on playing it with feeling.
Don’t pay any attention to my fingering. I jacked up the tip of my index finger doing the lazy man’s load. So I’m fingering some things in a weird way.
Buy the original
Christmas tabs and chords
Take Me Home, Country Roads tab
Uke Hunt Patreon
Tracklist
Le Temps d’une étincelle – L’ Endroit d’ou? l’on Vient
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Greener
Sage Harrington – What'll I Do
Arya Dhayal – Margazhi poove to Hindolam
Olga Kochetova and Evgen Kurenko – Romance Via @hermanvdc
Victor Kozlovsky – Sweet Dolores
Annier Trio – Coquette
Lil Rev – Old Molly Hare
I wasn’t familiar with XTC’s Love on a Farmboy’s Wages until it requested on Patreon. I immediately loved the acoustic riffs. They are challenging to play on uke, though. So I’ve split it into a duet with one uke covering the melody (tab above) and one covering the backing (below). The melody part is much easier to play.
Both parts are played with a capo on the 4th fret. Which puts them in the same key as the XTC version. But there’s nothing stopping you playing capo-less if you’re not playing along with the original.
Even by itself, I was having a hard time playing the riff consistently. So I have simplified it slightly. In each bar of the original there are two lots of three open E-string notes. But I’ve chopped the second lot and replaced them with a single note.
Here’s an MP3 backing track you can play the lead part along with.
It’s award season and time to hand out the most coveted of them all The UkeHunties.
I love the mix of sounds on this “Hawaiian noir” album. Ukuleles and steal guitars are masterfully blended with dark electronica, moody vocals and lush orchestration from the Brno Philharmonic. It’s a real treat for the ears. And be sure to check out the covers they’ve been posting on Bandcamp recently.
Runners Up
Jake Shimabukuro – Trio
George Elmes – Soprano Ukulele
João Tostes – Live Ukulele Here, There & Everywhere
I’ve long been a fan of Charming Disaster’s darkly humorous songs and they knocked it out the park with this one.
Runners Up
Clem Snide & Scott Avett – Roger Ebert
Desirée Dawson – Hey Brother
Hula Hi-Fi – Crooked Hearts
B.S Roberts – Fairytale
Dani Joy & Daniel Ho – Strange World
Ukulele Death Squad – Let Me Down
I don’t know anything about Vivian Kim but she’s been killing it with the classical ukulele covers this year. I highly recommend giving her YouTube channel a sub and listening to her version of Vivaldi’s Concerto For Lute in D Major.
Runners Up
Jake Shimabukuro – When The Masks Come Down
Annier Trio – Bistro Fada
Nicolas Fingerstyle Ukulele – Wave
U Can Uke & Vinícius Vivas – The Reason
Vinícius Vivas and Friends – There Will Be Some Changes Made
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Limehouse Blues
Zoe’s weekly live streams on her YouTube channel have been an oasis of loveliness in the grimness of lockdown. And her cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop is a regular favourite.
Runners Up
Tricity Vogue & All Girl Swing Band – Rasputin
Claire Hastings and Grant Dinwoodie – Wild Mountain Thyme
Dani Joy – There, There
Bobby Alu – Lavalava Samoa
Walk off the Earth – Thunderstruck
With the very generous support of the Uke Hunt Patreons, I’ve been able to more than double the amount of tabs I’ve been putting out. And this one was a Patreon request. Which made me wonder why I hadn’t done it earlier becsause it’s undoubtedly one of the greatest songs of all time.
Runners Up
Pixies – Where Is My Mind?
Gustavo Santaolalla – The Last of Us Part II Theme
Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine
Dua Lipa – Don’t Start Now
Tiny Tim – Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Kanye West – All of the Lights/Violent Crimes
The Parting Glass
I have been in floods of tears over this album multiple times this year. It’s so beautiful and poignant I can’t handle it. You can check out my uke arrangement of Rooftop Dancing here.
And if you’re more into folky stuff than electro-pop, check out (Sylvan Esso vocalist) Amelia Meath’s other band Mountain Man.
Runners Up
Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud
Andrianne Lenker – songs
The Strokes – The New Abnormal
This is my favourite of the post-Beatle Christmas songs. Easily beating out Ding Dong, Ding Dong and Wonderful Christmastime (which has the worst guitar solo ever committed to vinyl).
My favourite aspect of War is Over is the usual way it uses key changes. Most commonly, you find key changes near the end of the song e.g. in Penny Lane. But here there’s a key change before the first chorus (in this arrangement change from F in the first verse to Bb in the second). But this wasn’t the first time Lennon pulled off an early key change. If I Fell starts in Db before switching to D for the first verse.
Tracklist
Abe Lagrimas Jr. – Jitterbug Waltz
Adrien Janiak – Aux Lacs d'Ambin
Arya Dhayal – King of My Kind
The Prettiots – Sunday
Vinícius Vivas – Eureka
Johnny Nash and Arthur Godfrey – Swing Low Sweet Chariot Via @ukeist
Xiao Case ft. Feng E – Pride and Joy
Donald Bousted – Il ne fe trouve en amytie
– The Black Friday sale on my tab ebooks is running. With up to 70% off until 2nd December.
– Tyrone & Lesley are crowdfunding their new record Have No Words.
– Lil Rev is doing ukulele Zoom lessons. Next up on Monday is 1950s Chicago blues style playing.
– Warren Buffett tells Goldman Sachs, “I can just say that, as my number of ukeleles has gone up, my net worth has gone up.”
– Adam Savage builds a ukulele kit (The missing audio at the start is on his end, not yours).
– Making a cassette player ukulele.
– Northampton pub-goers band together to replace stolen antique ukulele
– Poppy-themed ukulele raises funds for Royal British Legion
– Auction of a ukulele signed by Jake Shimabukuro, John Cruz and Jack Johnson to raise money for Guitars in the Classroom.
A massive thanks to Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running. And double thanks go to November’s Tenor backers:
– Alina Morosanu.
– Arthur Foley.
– Colleen Petticrew.
– Dan.
– Douglas.
– Elizabeth Beardsley.
– Fiona Keane.
– Joseph Freeman.
– Katherine Penney.
– Kie77.
– Lisa Johnson.
– Mr Daniel Barclay.
– Nick Parsons
– Olga deSanctis.
– Pat Weikle.
– Pauline LeBlanc.
– Sandi Clement.
– Thorsten Neff.
– Trevor Mccravy.
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