Dent May and his Magnificent Ukulele – Love Song 2009 (Chords)

You have to be comfortable with a very high level of camp to play a cowboy Fluke. I think Dent May is the man for that job.

Requested by Fiona.

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (Chords)

Another one from the wonderful WIUO. This Prince cover is the standout track on their latest EP The Dreaming. Another good one for ukulele groups – easy chords for the beginners and twiddly bits for the showoffs. The only unusual chord in it is Ab. If you can’t get your fingers around that you can just move the whole G chord shape up a fret and reach your thumb round to stop the G string sounding.

Suggested Strumming

d – d – d u d u

Will see you almost all the way through.

In the verse: once for C, once for G and twice for F.
In the chorus: once for F, once for G and twice for F. Once for the other chords (except the final G – two down strums for that).

Twiddly Bits

There’s a lot going on in the intro. I’ve written it up for four parts:

Your Man (Intro Tab)

And here’s me playing that arrangement slowed down a bit.

MP3

Buy it on Amplifier

More WIUO

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra interview
Hey Ya
The Bucket
Israelites
Blue Smoke (Chords)

Brandi Carlile – Oh Dear (Chords)

I must admit I had no idea who Brandi Carlile was until I saw this clip. But when I posted it on the Saturday UkeTube there was an outpouring of love from the ukers. It’s not hard to see why. This is a lovely little ukulele tune.

Suggested Strumming

Dead easy. It’s all down strums on the beats.

Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer’s hip-hop history has caused a bit of a stir on 7 of the 8 internets, so I thought I’d plow through the whole thing.

A lot to get through in this one. But start out by tuning up to the traditional banjolele D tuning: aDF#B.

Rapper’s Delight Section

There’s tab for the bass riff here – but it’s in a different key.

King of Rock and Enormous Guitar Solo Section

My favourite section of the song. He uses the same chords for the, “enormous guitar solo” but with a few more fancy triplet strums and shifts between Em and Em7 shoved in the hole thusly:

Fight for Your Right Section

The main riff is E – G – A. But he throws in a B right before the lyrics.

The solo in this section is a lot of moving between B and Badd9+ with the occasional B7 thrown in.

She Watch Channel Zero Section

Chromatically descending chords. If you’re feeling lazy you could start with E played 7655 and slide it down a fret each time.

Mama Said Knock You Out Section

At the start of the Knock You Ayyyyyyt section he’s just playing D and A before the E chord comes in later.

The Magic Number Section

Dead easy two chorder. Simple enough for any stoner to play.

My Name Is Section

The whole song has been in E/Em so I’m not sure why the last bit switches up to F.

Buy it on eBay.

He also uses it as backing to Stephen Fry’s cozy Phill and Phil’s The Perfect Ten. But, apparently, he doesn’t know what chords he was playing. Which is why Sean requested it.

The theme is just these four chords over and over:

G Gdim C6 D7

The version on the show is tuned down half a step (f#BEbG#).

Requested by Sean.

Ian Emmerson – Precious Little Theme (Chords)

Ian Emmerson – Precious Little Theme (Chords)

Michael Legge and James Hingley’s Precious Little Podcast features quite a bit of ukulele. Legge uses it as punctuation. He did the show’s original theme tune as well but Ian ‘Re-Entrant‘ Emmerson found it so terrible he recorded a new one (using the 5 Foot 2 chords). Which is a bit harsh. He might not be the world’s greatest uker, but he does shout ‘Uke Hunt’ at regular intervals in the show. So he’s obviously a big fan.

Buy The Re-Entrants’ CDs

Ukulelezo – Optional Accessory (Chords)

This year’s Bushman contest has just started. So what better time to put up chords for the winner of last year’s Bushman contest: Ukulelezo’s Optional Accessory. It was a deserving winner; refulgent with wit, originality and a killer chord progression. Must have been the easiest decision the Bushman nabobs ever made.

None of the chords in the song are too tricky but they come along fast and furious which makes this one a bit of a bugger to play. I still can’t get the hang of it.

Suggested Strumming

Zoe’s a bit of a chord-slag and doesn’t spend long on any chord. Most of them just last for two down strums.

Requested by Kelly.

Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve (Chords)

It’s not often I do requests for non-commenters any more. Partly because I despise people in general and partly because most requests look like this, “Song request – Mr. Brightside by the killers and the ukulele is by Julia Nunes.” But this week I’m doing a three requests from people who seemed quite nice and, more importantly, requested songs I wanted to do anyway.

The first one is for one of the funniest songs from Garfunkel and Oates (Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome). As always with their songs, I need to slap a big NSFW on this one. And there are two bits of Micucci good news. She’s currently recording the next series of Scrubs and she will be playing played at Uketober Fest in Griffith Park LA along with fellow Uke Hunt favourites: , Madame Pamita and The UkuLady.

Suggested Strumming

Two down strums for almost all the chords. The only exceptions are the G in the intro (which last for four beats) and the last line of the middle section (one down strum for each chord lasting four beats each – you can pluck a few individual notes as well if the mood takes you).

Get it on iTunes

Requested by Ed.

Here’s a thing. I detest musicals. I would rather have my testicles violently assaulted with a rusty hacksaw than sit through five minutes of Mamma Mia, or Sound of Music or Grease (and everyone who says I enjoy having my testicles violently assaulted with a rusty hacksaw is lying). Yet three of my all time favourite films are musicals (American Astronaut, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and now Stingray Sam).

Stingray Sam is the follow-up to American Astronaut but only in the sense that they share the same space-cowboy musical setting. You don’t need to know the story of American Astronaut to watch Stingray Sam. And Stingray Sam is probably the better starting point. It’s not quite so idiosyncratic.

Not that it’s without idiosyncrasies. For starters, it’s made to be watched on computers, iphones, toasters etc. It’s divided into six short parts each with its own song. And two of those songs are uke songs (which gives me an excuse to blather on about it). You can Episode 1 in the doodad up top (you might need to click through to the blog if you’re reading by email or feed). And I recommend you do so. Partly because it’s brilliant and partly so you know what I’m talking about when I say, “You got olive juice on my asking stick.”

You can also listen to the first of the ukulele tracks, Lullaby Song. The song is played in D-tuning and, befitting of a lullaby, it’s pretty simple. The only chords are D, D7 and G. The only exception is a discordant part in the loud, unlullaby-like instrumental section.

Suggested Strumming

For the verses you do half strums. So you strum the G and C strings together. Then you strum the E and A strings (all down strums). In between verses, he’s doing all full down strums.

Buy Stingray Sam

Nellie McKay – Mother of Pearl (Chords)

In honour of this song (and in honour of her being so obviously right), I’m going to try to get through this post without making any stupid jokes. It’s not going to be easy.

TED is easily the best thing about the internet. I could bang on about for months. But I just recommend a few of my favourites instead: Dan Ariely, Larry Lessig, Ken Robinson and Elizabeth Gilbert. They also had Nellie McKay along to sing a few songs including this one on her uke.

There are some very nice chord moves in the song (I am NOT going to that joke). It modulates between G and Bb a few times. And it uses the best trick for getting between two keys: lead in with the V chord. So before the section in Bb there’s an F chord. And before the section in G there’s a D7 chord. (If none of that makes any sense to you, How to Play Ukulele Chord Progressions has more info on it).

Rocky and Balls – Gaysong (Chords)

I think this song wins the award for shortest time between being put up and me getting requests. And it’s a pretty good one for beginners – no fancy jazz chords to worry about in this one.

Suggested Strumming

Try:

d – d u d u d -

Buy it on Bandcamp