Tracklist
Laura Currie – Tetris Theme (Tab here)
Natasha Ghosh – Howls Moving Castle Theme
Tyto Grey – R u n a w a y
Digga Digga Duo – Hummin' to Myself
Arko Mukhaerjee and Nishaad Pandey – Aam Paka
Christopher Davis-Shannon featuring Hotsy Totsy – Kiss the Girl
Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer – I Can’t Be Arsed
Alma Cook – Object Heavy
Iris Wagner – Akatsuki
A History of Gotoh tuners (thanks to @HermanVDC).
Following on from my list of most used ukulele chords in my posts, Uke Stuff have their graph of chord frequency.
New Releases
– Craig Robertson’s Stage and Circus Songs. A fantastic collection of songs from the last 16 years about various forms of entertainers including the absolutely essential The Hypnotist and Houdini Never Hung Around in Bars.
– Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer’s Dandinista continues the chap-hop in a political climate that has made the joke wear very thin.
Window Shopping
– Southern Ukulele Store lose their minds over Bird on a Wire ukuleles.
– Kiwaya 5K.
– Journey Instruments J-uke.
– Paul Stanley style Ibanez Iceman.
– KLOS guitar’s carbon fiber ukulele has passed its Kickstarter goal.
Housekeeping
– I’m going to be away from home and ukeless for a month. Posts should be going up as usual but if they aren’t then that’s why.
– You may or may not have noticed there was no Friday Links post last time around. From now on I’m just going to be posting them when there’s enough interesting stuff to post about.
Thomas the Tank Engine Theme (Tab)
I don’t know what possessed the nabobs at the Thomas corporation to replace the fantastic original Thomas theme with a piece of detestable ear-dreck. The new one has nothing as tasty as that chord change from C to Ab, the chromatic runs and the syncopation.
I’m not being strict with the fingerpicking in this one. I’m mostly using thumb and two finger picking but switch to one finger per string picking where notes on the g- and C-strings are played together.
Links
A selection of short pieces that achieved internet fame.
If you like these short tabs, you can find lots more on my Instagram.
Baby Shark
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Smash Mouth – All Star
All Star (Tab)
Darude – Sandstorm
Dr Dre – Next Episode
Epic Sax Guy
Billie Eilish – 8 (Chords)
I thought I was done with Billie Eilish for a while after tabbing up bury a friend and when the party’s over. But there’s some ukulele action and I love it when old musical tropes get adopted and reworked, so couldn’t resist taking on two examples from Eilish’s new album. bad guy (below) adapts some old blues ideas while 8 takes a classic 30s turnaround chord progression of C – E7 – Dm – G7.
Before you tackle this one, slap a capo on the third fret.
Suggested Strumming
You can do this strum twice for each chord all the way through (although on the original the chords do cut out now and then):
d – d u – u d u
Sometimes there’s a touch strum on the first down strum. That means you hit just the g-string when you strum. It doesn’t matter if you hit the C-string as well but aim for just the g.
Which sounds like this:
Twiddly Bits
There’s a dead simple solo. Be sure to give the strings a bit of vibrato to make the notes last as long as possible. I’ve tabbed this without a capo but there’s nothing below the third fret so you can keep the capo on with no problems.
Links
Buy it on Amazon
More Billie Eilish tabs
Bonus: Billie Eilish – bad guy
Billie Eilish – bad guy (Riff Tab)
The bass in bad guy (played on a baritone here) uses a traditional 8 bar blues riff using the minor pentatonic scale. Later in the song it’s joined by a part (played on tenor in my version) that uses the blues scale. If you’re interesting in learning more about those things you can find much more info in my Blues Ukulele ebook.
Tracklist
Professor Ogma – Gullywasher
Bailey Rushlow – You’re Still the One
Keston Cobblers Club – Eye to Eye
Feng E – Chandelier
Zoe Bestel & Tobias Elof – Hushabye Mountain
Eden Kai & Maiko – Dreams Come True
Herman Vandecauter – Meise Arboretum On machete
Mike Holland – The Windmills Of My Mind
Demetrius78G – Charlie Chaplin’s Music Ukulele Mashup
Billie Eilish – when the party’s over (Tab)
As promised when I tabbed bury a friend, here’s a version of the slightly less creepy and more Bon Iver-y when the party’s over.
The song is mainly made up of vocal harmonies which means it works well with ukulele chords. There is a lot of space in the tune. So make sure you let it breath and don’t take it too fast.
I’ve used repeats in the tab, but there are a couple of small differences between the two verses. Firstly, I move the little run in bar 14 to bar 8. Then play this for the,, “Call me back”:
I pluck this firmly and very close to the bridge to replicate the jarring, distorted sound in the original.
The trickiest part of this arrangement is the, “Quiet when I’m coming home,” campanella run in bar 17. If you’re not into that, you can play it like this:
Links
I like to keep a list of songs that use just the most common ukulele chords. Arranged by the order people usually learn them in. That way you can find some songs to play no matter how few chords you know.
C, F and G (or G7)
If you prefer, you can use G7 in the place of G or vice versa for any of these songs.
Happy Birthday to You
The Bobby McGee’s – A Dog At All Things
Folk Uke – Motherfucker Got Fucked Up
Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime
The Lancashire Hotpots – He’s Turned Emo
NeverShoutNever! – Your Biggest Fan/Did It Hurt?
Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time
Paolo Nutini – High Hopes
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
SoKo – I Will Never Love You More
The Tiger Lillies – Start A Fire
Tom Waits – I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra/Kings of Leon – The Bucket
Plus Am, Dm and Em
Addams Family Theme Tune
Alton Ellis – Rock Steady
Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend to Dance With You
Blondie/Imelda May – Dreaming
Billy Bragg – Between the Wars
Darlene Love – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Darren Hanlon – All These Things
Electrelane – Cut and Run
Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
Foals – Spanish Sahara
Luis Fonsi – Despacito
Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve
GUGUG – California Sun
INXS – Never Tear Us Apart
Israel Kamakawiwoíole/Jason Castro – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Julien Dore – Cet Air-La
Kate Nash – Foundations
Kate Micucci/The Gooch – Mr Moon
Kelli Rae Powell
Last Shadow Puppets – Standing Next to Me
LP – Into the Wild
The Lumineers – Ho Hey
Phosphorescent – Wolves
She & Him – Sentimental Heart
Plus D
Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah
Allo Darlin’ – Space Christmas
Amanda Palmer – In My Mind
Antsy Pants/Bear Creek – Vampire
Belle and Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap
Elvis Costello – Good Year for the Roses
Daniel Johnston – Living Life
Damon Albarn – Mr Tembo
The Dubliners and The Pogues – The Irish Rover
Garfunkel and Oates – The Fade Away (you can use D instead of D7)
Gothic Archies – Shipwrecked
GUGUG/The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
Woody Guthrie – All You Fascists Bound to Lose
Keston Cobblers’ Club – You-Go
The Libertines – Don’t Look Back into the Sun
The Little Ones – Tangerine Visions
The Monkees – I’m a Believer (Use D where it says D7).
Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel
Phredd – Elmer’s Electric Tricycle
The Pogues – Fiesta
The Pogues – Waxies Dargle
The Pretenders – 2000 Miles
Skinny Lister – Colours
Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
Velvet Underground and Nico – I’ll be Your Mirror
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
Plus A and E7
Camera Obscura – Cock Up Your Beaver
Eagles of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard
The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go
Florence & the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (don’t panic, you can use E7 instead of E in this song)
The Pogues – Sally McLennane
Joan Jett – Bad Reputation
Junior Brown – Better Call Saul
Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You
Paolo Nutini – Pencil Full of Lead
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey
The Weavers – Pay Me My Money Down
The White Stripes – Little Ghost
Plus Bb
James Bay – Hold Back the River
Beirut – A Candle’s Fire
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (You can use C instead of C5)
Ingrid Michaelson – Be OK
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Lorde/Walk off the Earth – Royals
Lorde/WIOU – Team
Mumford and Sons – The Cave
Nevershoutnever – First Dance
Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers
Noah and the Whale – Jealous Kind of Love
Sufjan Stevens – Lumberjack Christmas
The Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Plus Bm
Everly Brothers – Bowling Green
Etta James – I’d Rather Go Blind
The Pogues – When the Ship Comes In
More…
Mastered all those? Tackle more:
Scott Walker – 30th Century Man (Chords)
It’s already turning into a sad year for musical deaths. This month has seen the loss of Dick Dale, Keith Flint and Scott Walker. I’ve already covered The Prodigy’s Out of Space and done tab a version of Miserlou here. So here’s a quick tribute to Scott Walker.
Walker is best known for his orchestral ballads and dramatic baroque arrangements. But I’ve gone with a stripped down song that really showed off his songwriting chops: 30th Century Man.
I’ve used the most common chord forms in the chart. But I prefer to play using these chord shapes:
Alternatively, you can use one of the alternative ways of playing the E chord or put a capo on the second fret and use these:
30th Century Man (Chords)(Capo Version)
Suggested Strumming
Intro: Since there’s nothing else going on at this point in the song, I recommend following the strum in the original which goes like this:
Verse: After the intro you use this strum:
d – d – d – d u
Play that once on E. You can then play it twice on D. Or throw in the Dsus4 and strum it like this:
Follow that with the main strum once on G and four times on A (or play the strum from the intro).
Chorus: Main Strum once per chord.
Outro: Main strum six times or intro strum one and a half times.
Links
Arko Mukhaerjee and Hari Maharjan Ensemble – Resham Firiri Thanks to @ukeist
Prettier Than Matt – Heaven Forbid Thanks to @ukeist
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Babooshka
Alicja Maciejewska – I’ll Be There for You
LP – Girls Go Wild
Yuki Niino – Hymne à l’amour
MARLOWE and Chanel Dela Cruz – Talk
The O’Pears – Find the Sun
Kamaka & Kala'e Camarillo – E Pi'i Mai (That’s What I Like
