The Blockheads – A Little Knowledge (Chords)

I went to see the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll last week. Enjoyable film – mostly for Andy Serkis’s performance. And he was a hell of a guy: probably the only person with balls big enough to take the piss out of Mick Jones to his face and one of the few people to ever write a great protest song.

Ian Dury is, obviously, irreplaceable. Which hasn’t stopped the Blockheads replacing him. With the best will in the world, Derek ‘The Draw’ Hussey isn’t up to the job. The vocals and lyrics might not be much cop, but there are plenty of nice musical moves going on. The tasty ukulele intro in this version is played on a low-G uke, but it works pretty well in standard tuning too:

A Little Knowldge (Intro Tab)

The ukulele intro doesn’t feature on the recorded version, but there is a uke on it playing the chords. The chord progression is quite a neat chromatically descending figure topped off with a classic turnaround.

Sophie Madeleine – You Are My Favourite (Chords)

A bit of a change to the usual schedule. Sophie Madeleine emailed me the other about her next video and asking for my help (to be honest, with all the Valentines and, “you are my favourite,” talk, I’m pretty sure the whole thing is just a ruse to get in pants). She wants a bunch of people to video themselves playing their ukuleles along with You Are My Favourite and send them to her so she can splice them together. Sounds like a fine idea to me. Here’s how you can get involved:

- Learn the chords (you can find those up there).
- Download the backing track:

Backing Track (MP3)

- Play along with it and video yourself (the rule is ‘nothing offensive’ – so all the kittens in my video died in vain).
- Make a video in .mp4 or .m4v format and under 100MB in size
- Upload the results to senduit and set it to expire in a week.
- Email Sophie with results.
- You’ve got a month to do it (until the 13th March).

The Chords

Here’s the chord chart:

Sophie Madeleine – You’re My Favourite (Chords)

The chords are written up in two ways: standard tuning and f Bb D G (i.e. every string tuned down 2 frets). Whichever you choose, make sure you’re in tune.

If you’re playing in standard tuning, I’d recommend playing Am (2000) instead of Fmaj (5500). It makes it much easier to play and sounds close enough – it’s only missing the F note which is picked up in the backing track for the most part anyway.

Suggested Strumming

The main strum is this two bar pattern:

d – d u – u d u
- u d u – u d -

Which is shortened to just the first bar for the Ab – F change in the verse and the, “I hope that I’m by far…” part in the chorus.

The only other strumming pattern is in the bridge. That’s all down strums.

Tuning Notes

Here are the notes f Bb D G for you to tune to:

When you’re tuning down, it helps to loosen the strings too far then tighten up to the note.

Buy You Are My Favourite on BandCamp

April Smith – Colors (Chords)

There are a lot of ukuleles cropping up in adverts at the moment. This one from April Smith was used in an ad for Trojan condoms. Which changes the meaning of the song into something along the lines of, “Don’t worry honey. While you’re gone, I promise to use a condom with the many, many people I screw. Love ya, bye.”

I actually paid for this album to be made (check here if you don’t believe me) and it was worth it just to get this uke-featuring song out there. It’s an insanely catchy tune. Listen to it a couple of times and you’ll be stomping around singing the chorus.

Suggested Strumming

The easiest thing to do is follow the guitar and just down strum on the off-beats:

- d – d – d – d

On the last down beat, you can play a C# chord (same as the D but one fret down) and slide it up. But be sure to keep all the other strums short by cutting off the chords.

When the uke comes in you can go for something more tricky like this:

d – d – - u d u

Pre-Order Songs For A Sinking Ship

Phredd – Elmer’s Electric Tricycle (Chords and Tab)

I wish we had songs this good when I was a kid. All we had was Fingerbobs (okay, so Bagpuss was pretty amazing). I can certainly relate to the story of a mad scientist working away in the shed with everyone wondering what’s he building in there?

This track turned up on the Phredderiffic in a uke-less form. But I’ve written up the uke version from Phreddtube because, of course, it’s far superior.

Suggested Strumming

In the verses, he’s using the same figure as the intro. But if you’d rather strum, you could go with:

d – d – x u d -

For the chorus:

G…………C
d – d – - u d -

D…………C
d – d – - u d -

Buy it on iTunes and check out his new album Phreddtastic!

The Who – Blue, Red and Grey (Chords)

I think the fact that The Who – one of the hardest rocking bands in history – had a ukulele song deserves a bigger mention than it usually gets. Perhaps it will do now that Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey both regularly play the song live on uke.

They both play Blue, Red and Grey slightly differently to the version on The Who by Numbers (which is the version I’ve written up). The original is played in D-tuning but both now play it in C-tuning. Daltrey uses the same chords as the original while Townshend uses – broadly – the same chord shapes as the original (so it’s a tone lower). Another difference is that Townshend uses the F – C7M progression from the bridge in the verses as well.

Suggested Strumming

Time to invent a new bit of shorthand: t = touch strum (i.e. a down strum only hitting the g-string).

The only tricky bit is the intro:

D………..Dsus4
t – d – - u d -

For the rest of the song it’s just

t – d – t – d -

over and over.

Sophie Madeleine – The Knitting Song (Chords)

There seems to be a natural synergy between the ukulele and knitting. Both much maligned, both newly hip and both excellent, low-key ways for people to be creative. There are certainly a lot of people who do both. And I’m very much in favour of it. Perhaps I should take up knitting. Anyone offering lessons?

Suggested Strumming

For the Em and D chords:

d – d u – u d u
- u d u – u d -

For the shorter chords after that:

d – d u – u d –

And the same patterns for the middle.

Twiddly Bits

Sophie Madeleine – Knitting Song (Solo Tab)

The solo uses the same chords as the middle. It’s a tricky progression to solo over and she’s gone for the smart (and easy) way of dealing with F# chord: play notes from the chord itself.

Buy it on BandCamp and you can now get Life.Love.Ukulele. with killer artwork on vinyl (it’s a spinning disc with music on apparently – I can’t see it catching on) – Discount code “love” for 15% off.

Half Man Half Biscuit – It’s Cliched to be Cynical at Christmas (Chords)

My Christmas present to myself is to finally put some Half Man Half Biscuit on the blog.

I was going to evangelize about HMHB, but they’re really a band you either love or don’t understand at all. Listen to Joy Division Oven Gloves and Bob Wilson, Anchorman. If you don’t get it, move along.

Twiddly Bit

Zee Avi – No Christmas (Chords)

No ukulele on this one but I had to post it anyway. Partly because I like it and partly because it shares its chords with one of my favourite Christmas songs of all time: Hello Saferide’s iPod Xmas.

Suggested Strumming

The bits of bass picking she uses in this song don’t work too well on the uke, so here’s a strumming pattern you can use:

d u d -

For each chord in the verse.

In the middle:

d u d u

For each chord.

More Zee Avi

Just You and Me
Kantoi

Garfunkel and Oates – Year End Letter (Chords)

Jay Leno has sky rocketed in my esteem recently. Last week he had Victoria Vox on and yesterday it was Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome.

The pair were premiering a new Christmas song and, as always, it was hilarious. More than deserving of a fast-track chording.

Visit GarfunkelAndOates.com
Garfunkel and Oates on iTunes.

More Kate Micucci

Kate Micucci Interview
Garfunkel and Oates – Present Face
Garfunkel and Oates – You, Me and Steve
Kate Micucci and William H Macy – It’s Time to Get Laid
Let Us Be Happy Together
Mr Moon
Screw You
Dear Deer

Ballard C Boyd – Christmas for Cowboys (Chords)

This is one of my all time faves – I think it’s hilarious and quite touching at the same time. And I think Ballard C Boyd’s ukulele version (from his 2007 Christmas record Christmas with U) is even better than the original. So it’s that one that I worked from – but the original is pretty much the same.

Suggested Strumming

This one is in 3/4 time so do:

d – d u d -

For each chord.