Verses:You Really Got Me is a straightforward basher. The biggest challenge is stamina. You’re doing heavy strumming through almost the whole thing. The only respite you get is the G chord at the end of the verses.
The other challenge is making sure only the notes you want ring out when you’re strumming. That means muting the g-string with your thumb and the other strings with any fingers you have free.
Solo: The solo is played by fingerpicking. It’s massively cut down from the original. You could expand it back into a full solo. But you’d need to find a way to beef it up.
This one is very simple. It’s all beginner chords and nothing higher than the first position.
Intro: This uses palm muting on the strings. Just rest the underside of your picking hand on the bridge just enough to mute the strings. Then strum right at the bridge while the strings are muted by the fretting hand.
If you don’t fancy this bit, you can go straight into the verse. You can also skip the same section in bars 27 and 28.
Verse: This is almost all played with one-finger-per-string picking. There are just a few strums thrown in. Which is the case for the rest of the song.
Pre-Chorus: This introduces some melody notes on the g-string in bars 11, 12 and 13.
Chorus: A little trickier than the other sections, as it has overlapping vocals. Rather than do anything fancy, the arrangement just switches to the new vocal line when it comes in.
Intro: This is the trickiest part of the song. You’ve got the thumb providing a descending bass line on the C-string. Meanwhile, the E and A-strings play the melody (plus one note on the g-string in bar 3).
The guitar line that finishes the intro (bars 7-8) doesn’t fit well on the ukulele. So this arrangement is more in keeping with the vibe rather than the actual notes. Even so, it’s a bit of a stretch to play.
Verse: Things ease off in the verse. Just use some alternating picking with your index and middle fingers on the A-string to get the notes up to speed.
Chorus: This returns to the descending bass line idea from the intro. For the second chorus, I threw in a bit of the vocal harmony at the end of bar 41.
Outro: A big jump up the neck to mimic the high harmonies.
Intro: Kicking off with a dissonant augmented E chord before diving straight into the verse.
Verses: The verses have a call-and-response structure. The vocals are the major scale call, and the guitar licks respond with some minor notes. In this arrangement, I’m playing the vocal part with picking and the guitar part with strums. This helps to make them distinct.
Solo: The solo is a workout for the strumming arm. It’s almost all triplets. But I’m playing them all with downstrums to keep a consistent attack.
This is mostly based on the first solo, with a few ideas from the second one thrown in. Feel free to include your own ideas too. But I’d recommend not straying too far from the Chuck Berry style.
Outro: A fun, if slightly cheesy, descending chord move at the end.
Something has become particularly associated with the ukulele since Paul has been regularly playing it on uke in tribute to George Harrison. And it transfers over to one very nicely.
Intro: A brief, one-bar intro. Make sure you bend the note at the 7th fret before you pick it.
Verse: The verses are built on two chromatically descending lines. Firstly, descending notes on the A-string set against a C chord. Secondly, descending notes on the g-string set against an Am chord.
With the steady pace of the song, there’s nothing too challenging here.
Bridge: Things get a bit more challenging in the bridge. The action shifts up the fretboard and there are a couple of stretches to deal with.
Solo: The trickiest section. And it’s such a great solo, I’d advise against changing it too much.
Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together is a buttery-smooth track, a laid-back feel, and has an earworm melody and tasty chords. All of which mean it suits the ukulele well.
Intro: The intro nicely sets up the harmony for the piece. And prepares you for plenty of movement up and down the neck. Keep the notes (except the C-string bass notes) staccato to mimic the horns.
Verse: The first verse has a more minimal arrangement. The second and third verses are heavier and have a bit of filigree. You can mix and match these elements as you like. Or include some of your own ideas.
Pre-Chorus: A tasty Am9 in this section. Which is fretted like an Em chord but with the g-string played at the second fret.
Chorus: A lot of moving up and down here. But if you plan ahead, you can use the passing notes to get into position for the next chord. For example, if you play the A-string, 3rd fret in bar 40 with your pinkie, you’ll be set up for the Dm7 chord in bar 41.
Solo: The string solo is the hardest part of the song. I’ve kept this arrangement as close to the original as possible. But I think there’s room for a more uke-friendly version if you want to try. Or, I don’t think anyone would notice if you just skipped this section.
Verse: The verses are nice and simple. A straightforward G-C-D chord progression with a simple but effective melody.
The verse at the end (bar 40 onwards) is a beefed-up version of the first half of the earlier verse pattern.
Chorus: Here’s where things get challenging. There’s a lot of bouncing up and down the neck. And things get fiddly at the top end. I found the high Bm section (bar 24) the most challenging bit of the song.
Bridge: This section has a big drop in tempo and a time signature change to 6/8. Like the chorus, there are some challenging moves here. But the slower tempo makes it more manageable.
Outro: Closing off with a descending G minor pentatonic inspired by the live ending of the song.
I’ve covered a lot of Halloween songs over the years and I’ve always avoided Monster Mash. It’s delivered in a talk-singing voice, so there’s no real melody to transport to uke. So the melody in this arrangement is largely fictional. I’ve tried to follow the contours of the vocals and match the vibe of the original. But feel free to change anything you don’t like. Either way, I’m sure Pam would hate it.
Keeping up the summer vibes (and the Brian Wilson tributes) with The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ USA. Musically, the song is based on Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen. But Wilson took the wise decision to change the lyrics.
The key technique throughout is strum blocking i.e. muting the strings you don’t want to sound. For example, in the opening three notes, I’m muting the g-string with my thumb and the E- and A-strings with my index finger.
Intro: A very Chuck Berry-style lick. Played with all down-strums. And I’m holding my thumb against my index finger for some extra force (almost holding it like a pick).
Verse: The verse starts out alternating bars between melody notes (played on the g-string) and a standard blues shuffle. Then switches to more straightforward chords in bar 10.
For the strum blocking in the melody bars (e.g. bar 4) I’m muting the C-string with the underside of the finger I’m fretting the g-string with. And I’m muting the A-string with my middle finger (which is fretting the E-string).
Chorus: Starts almost identical to the verse except for having a more basic shuffle and not muting the C-string for the melody parts. Then it ventures up the neck for the falsetto “Everybody’s gone…” in bar 30.
Solo: I’ve stuck fairly close to the original here. But so long as you stay in the Chuck Berry area, there’s plenty of room to make changes.
Outro: Just the “Everybody’s gone…” bit repeated, then I threw in a little lick at the end.
How else could I pay tribute to Brian Wilson than with one of the greatest songs of all time: Wouldn’t It Be Nice. The song weaves through multiple keys and spans a wide vocal range, so I’ve done some shifting to bring it all within the range of the uke.
Intro: Kicking off in the key of B with a nifty riff that is a bit of a finger-twister but fun to play. This section ends with a D chord setting things up for the key change to G in the verse. If you’re going to change keys in a song, playing the V chord of the key you’re changing to is the smoothest way to do it.
Chorus: The happiest section of the song where you’re mostly rocking out open chords. As long as you keep things bright and percussive, you can’t go far wrong here.
Verse: Moving to the key of E minor (the relative minor of G) for the more melancholy verse. This section contains my favourite chord in the song (the juicy F9 in bar 14) and favourite note (the D on “staaaaaayyyy” at the start of bar 16).
Bridge: Shifting to the key of E major. This time, it’s more abrupt, without a chord to smooth the transition. This is the trickiest part of the arrangement. Lots of barre chords and use of the g-string in the melody.
Outro: A nice, simple jam of an ending. No need to even change the chord. It’s just G all the way through.