Looks like I’m going to be doing a Beirut on the Dent May album, The Good Feeling Music of….

The album version of Meet Me in the Garden has the uke turned down and guitar and Gainsbourg-ness turned up compared to the demo version but with the 6th and major 7 chords it still keeps a very island theme.

Suggested Strumming Pattern

For the Eb6 and B7M chords:

d – x u d – x u x u x u d u d u

The x’s are chnks (bring the underside of your strumming hand down on the strings to mute them).

For ‘Out by the pond…’:

d – x – u d u

for Eb6 and F6 and just d u d u … for the G.

More Dent May

Oh, Paris! (Chords)
You Can’t Force a Dance Party (Chords)
Love Song 2009 (Chords)

A very strange year for me was 2008. It was the first time in history my Crush of the Year wasn’t a musician or Janeane Garofalo (24?) but Countdown champion, writer and bus-atheist Ariane Sherine.

But she hasn’t written any shouty, punk-pop songs so today’s post is about Florence & the Machine who distinguished herself by using ukes, covering Beirut and kicking ass.

Kiss With A Fist is a simple three chord slash-a-long. If you wanted to avoid the E chord, you could move everything up a fret so the chords are Bb, Eb and F.

Buy Florence & the Machine

Zach Condon quite often finishes off Beirut gigs with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Although his version is closer to Jeff Buckley’s (one of the best cover versions ever recorded).

The chords are fairly simple. One thing he does a few times in the song (and loads of times in his own songs) is play the F chord with the G string open, then hammer on at the second fret. He does a similar thing with the G chord. This time the A string is left open then hammered on.

I’ve included two versions of Am in the song (one with the A string open and one with it at the third fret). He always uses the third fret version on the C – Am change that you hear at the beginning. He throws in the easier version on a few occasions towards the end.

Kudos to Leonard Cohen for making my job easier by describing the chords in the lyrics. Why can’t all songwriters be so helpful?

Suggested Strumming

Any simple 3/4 pattern will see you through. A good one to start out with is:

d – d u d –

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More Beirut Tab and Chords
Instrumental tab for Hallelujah

The second in the ‘What ukulele do they play?’ series. The good news: if you want to play the same ukuleles as Zach Condon, you won’t have to spend anywhere near as much as if you wanted Jake Shimabukuro’s ukulele. They’re actually fairly bog-standard ukuleles, not that expensive and would be a good choice for beginners.

He seems to have two main stage ukuleles:

Bushman Jenny

Irrefutable evidence. Looks to me like a BU7TV.

Lanikai

Irrefutable evidence. Looks to me like an LU-21T.

Other ukuleles he’s been spotted with:

Fluke: On the set of the video for Elephant Gun he Postcards from Italy on the Fluke that’s featured in the video.

Samick: In this photoshoot. It’s the only time I’ve seen him with a Samick, so I don’t think it’s a regular player of his. It looks like a UK70.

Beirut Ukulele Tab and Chords

Lon Gisland

Elephant Gun (Post)

My Family’s Role in the World Revolution

Capo at the first fret Gm – Eb – F

Scenic World (Second Version) (PDF)

The same chords as the version on Gulag Orkestar.

The Lon Gisland Sound

Capo at the first fret Am – D7 – G – C – Cmaj7. Just the same as Elephant Gun.

Carousels

Gmaj7 and A all the way through.

Misc

Closing Song (Post)

Transatlantique (Post)

The White Whale

One of the tracks recorded under the name Real People. The chords are Ebm – Abm – Bb. But it makes more sense to play Dm – Gm – Bb with the capo on the first fret.

The Interior of a Dutch House

From a split single with Calexico. The first half starts off with a uke. It disappears halfway through, but the chords are the same: E – Bm – F#m – E

My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille

From Big Change: Songs for Finca. The chords are G – A – Bm – D. I prefer to slide the G shape up two frets for the A chord, but you can use the normal A chord if you prefer.

Brazil (PDF)

Cover of a song by Ary Barroso and a live favourite. Also done by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The chords are simple enough, and there’s no way you can’t include this little riff:

Siki Siki Baba

Another regular live cover. I took the chords from this version with the Kocani Orkestar (the second half of the video). For the most part it’s G5. You can spice it up a little by adding in the bass line to the chord.

In the instrumental parts, there are C then D chords leading into the G5.

The LAAA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA section is Em, Bm, C, D, G.

You can find Gulag Orkestar and Flying Club Cup tabs and chords on this page, but that’s your lot.

Nantes (Chords)

Other than faffing about with a capo, it’s dead easy. Dm – C – F all the way through.

A Sunday Smile (Chords)

There’s a really great uke-heavy version of Sunday Smile on flyclubcup.com. It has the same basic chords as the album version, but uses different inversions.

Guyamas Sonora

Another capo-at-the-first-fret tune. I think this happens a lot in Beirut tunes as trumpets and other brass instruments are easier to play in flat keys (Bb and Eb in particular).

La Banlieue

Em – A – F# – B

Cliquot (Chords)

My favourite non-uke song on the album. Like a lot of Beirut songs, there’s a shift in chords and lyrical perspective in the middle of the song and it works particularly well here.

The song is, apparently, written from the perspective of Nicole Clicquot. She married into a wine making family but became widowed in her twenties. She went on to pioneer a method of producing clear champagne and established the famous Veuve Clicquot.

In the first verse of the song, she’s pleading for her husband to recover. In the second, he has died and she’s given up all hope – wants to burn the winery down. Then the music shifts from B minor to D major as discovers her purpose and vows to make her husband’s name famous.

The Penalty (Chords)

Forks And Knives (La Fête)

In The Mausoleum

I um-ed and ah-ed over this one. The chords I’ve written up are the ones that sound best to me, but there a few options. You could play the A6 chord like this. And you could play the C#m chord with the Bm shape moved up two frets.

Un Dernier Verre (Pour la Route)

Time to reach for the capo again.

Cherbourg

Another song in two halves.

St Apollonia (Chords)

The Flying Club Cup

Two ticks in the I-Spy book of Beirut chord progressions: capo first fret, new chord progression for the second half.

Next week, I should have Lon Gisland and a few other miscellaneous bits and bobs figured out. They’ll be up on the Beirut Chords and Tabs page at some point.

I got so many people emailing me about Beirut chords and when Saltatory was going to be back up, I decided it would be quicker just to set about tabbing the whole Beirut back catalogue.

Gulag Orkestar (Chords)

The first part of this tune is played very loosely, so it’s tricky to keep up with the chords. The Dm – A – Bb flat move is one that’s common in flamenco playing.

Prenzlaurberg

I couldn’t find lyrics for this song and I haven’t got a blind clue what he’s singing, so you’ll have to go without a chord chart for this one. Luckily, the chords are straightforward. They’re Ebm – Abm – Bb all the way through. The chords aren’t too difficult to play in standard tuning, but they’re made even easier if you tune up half a step or capo at the first fret. That’ll make the chord shapes Dm, Gm, A.

Brandenburg

Dead simple chords: Dm – Gm all the way through. You can jazz it up a little and follow the mandolin by taking your index finger off for the last few strums of the chords (creating a Dsus2 and a Gsus2 respectively).

Postcards from Italy (Chords and Tab)

Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) (Chords)

This one really does require you to use a capo or tune up a fret if you’re going to play in the original key.

Rhineland (Heartland) (Chords)

More of those F and Bb add9 chords that crop up in most of Beirut’s ukulele based songs.

Scenic World (Chords)

The cheesy drum machine cracks me up every time.

Bratislava

Another song with that flamenco move in. The chords are A – Bb all the way through.

The Bunker

The first half of the song is G – Dm7. The second half is Gm – C – F.

The Canals of Our City

Another one with impenetrable lyrics. I’m 96% sure the first few lines are, “Wolves gone over the sea, but nod for me/Watch now, I ho lay na ho had I and no tie, no tie.” The chords make a lot more sense. They are G – Dm throughout.

After the Curtain

A tough one to get sounding right on the uke. Using the chord progression D – Gsus2 – D – Asus4 is about as much sense as I could make out of it.

That’s it for Gulag. I’m working on Flying Club Cup (which should be done by this time next week) and Lon Gisland and others (by the week after). There’s already some of that stuff up on the Beirut chords page.

Transatlantique (sometimes referred to as Transatlantic) is tucked away on the Elephant Gun EP – which is pretty hard to find itself. The only place I’ve found it available is on on eMusic. That’s a real shame as it’s one of my favourite Beirut songs – and, judging by the number of requests I’ve had for it, a favourite amongst uke players.

The first part of the tune uses common Beirut tricks. He always seems to be playing that Fadd9 and hammering on to the F chord. Next up is the old descending note trick. The G, E and A strings form an F chord through the whole section. The only note that changes is on the C string (which moves down a fret each time). Don’t be put off by the F(2). This isn’t a strange chord you’ve never heard of – it’s just to distinguish the two different versions of the F chord that crop up in the song.

Thanks to Mitch for sending me his version of the chords. My version is slightly different. So, if you think my chords suck, see if you prefer his. You can find them on the Beirut tab and chords page.

More Beirut ukulele tab and chords here.

Listen to Transatlantique here.

Get on eMusic

If you were hoping for a Valentines song today, you came to the wrong place. Zym has a very fitting ukulele song for today. Go there.

It probably won’t come as a huge shock to you that I enjoyed Beirut’s Flying Club Cup. Ukuleles, brass bands, pretentiousness; what’s not to love? Better still, it came with a website full of videos of the band performing tracks in various rundown areas.

There are a couple of uke-heavy tracks on the album: The Penalty (you can find the chords for The Penalty here) and St Apollonia.

St Apollonia is structured in quite a strange way. The song starts out with a C major chord, then shifts to C minor for the first and only verse. For the instrumental section, the chords over the verse are shuffled about.

During the song, there are some rapid strums. Because they’re using those horrible rhino’s toenails, they have no option but to strum really fast. If you use your fingers, it’s easier to get this effect using a roll – rasgueado if you want to get Spanish about it. These are produced by flicking downwards with each finger individually. You can watch a good explanation of the rasgueadoes technique for guitar here.

You can find more Beirut chords here.

This song is an all round mystery to me. The first time I heard it was on the SXSW session on The Line of Best Fit (it’s still available for download) but it was referred to as ‘Sunday Smile’. But it’s completely different from the ‘A Sunday Smile’ on Flying Club Cup. There are a couple of videos of it on YouTube where it’s listed as ‘Closing Song’.

The mystery doesn’t end there. I can’t work out what he’s singing most of the time. That means I haven’t be able to put together my usual chord chart. The fact that there are only live recordings also makes it a bit trickier to get the chords, but here’s my best guess.

This progression makes up the intro and carries on for the first half of the song.

Midway through he goes into a short vamp on the F and C7sus4 before switching to this progression:

He might be playing C7sus4 instead of Fsus2 or vice versa in that bit. It’s hard to make out under the brass. Try it out and decide which you think is best.

And if you see Zach Condon tell him to stop mumbling.

Requested by Sigi

More Beirut tab and chords on Uke Hunt

Buy Flying Club Cup