Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life (Chords)

I don’t want to be mean, but you’re all playing First Day of My Life in a daft key. But whichever key you play it in, it’s a great song.

From all the darting eyes, I’m guessing that people are just reading the guitar chords and transferring them straight to uke. The trouble is Oberst plays this song with a capo at the fourth fret. That puts it close to uke territory. I’ve written the song up for a ukulele tuned one step down (so the chord shapes used are mostly those he uses), but kept the chord names the same as standard tuning to avoid confusion. It’s much easier to play this way, you avoid the dreaded E major.

My chords are a little different to the guitar ones floating around the net in a few other ways. Some of them are chords in the song that I think they’ve missed (the Bbadd9 in the intro and the C7 at the end of the verses) and some of them have been changed to make them work better on the uke (using a C as a passing chord rather than a B note, and the Gm at “But I realise that I need you…”).

The biggest problem area in the song is the F - ? - Dm progression at the end of what I’ve called the bridge section. The guitar chords use the same progression as the verse, F - A - Dm in our terms. But I don’t think that sounds right. I think he’s playing 021200 which would be Amaj7sus4 (1200) for us. It’s fairly discordant; the A and Ab are one fret apart rather than 13 and the A note doesn’t read as the root strongly enough. It does just about work in context, but I’ve written it up as Asus4 which is a little more pleasing to the ear. Those are your choices. Try them and see which you prefer.

The Burning Hell - Last Will and Testament

The Burning Hell - Last Will and Testament (Chords)

If you find yourself in Canada with nothing to do on 11th September (and I’m told that’s the default setting for Canada), you might want to make your way to Edmonton for the Ukulele Fest. The bill includes Uke Hunt favourites Switchblade Death Derby and The Be Arthurs. The bill will be headed by The Burning Hell. That’s only fitting since, Burning Hell frontman, Mathias Kom has declared he wants to be buried naked with a ukulele (a thought Ukulelezo found worryingly arousing). The event is in aid of Ukuleles for Peace, so get there if you can.

Last Will and Testament is played with DGBE tuning, but I’ve written up the chords for GCEA (coz that’s how I roll). To avoid big gaps in the middle section, you might want to imitate the cello part thusly:

And the second lick:

Suggested by Ukulelezo

Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Hoedown

Hoedown (Chords)

The song at the end of Whose Line Is It Anyway? is always the best part. Particularly the people who are heroically bad at it (Colin Mochrie). The Irish Drinking songs are always hilarious and chaotic. Unfortunately, that makes the funniest song ever useless for fitting chords around. So, I had to go with a Chip Esten verse for the song sheet.

I was debating whether to go with Hoedown or Irish Drinking Song until I realised they had exactly the same chorder* with the addition of the extra ‘ai-dee-die-de’ section. The Irish Drinking Song is in the key of D as opposed to G for Hoedown.

You can play the little intro part either as chords or, my preferred method, with a little finger picking:

*I’m changing Ukulala’s definition. I’m using it to mean a chord progression which is the same but in a different key. Since, if there’s a word for it, I can’t remember what it is.

ABBA - Dancing Queen

ABBA - Dancing Queen (Chords)

I can’t think of any fictional character less likely to take up the ukulele than James Bond. He takes himself far too seriously. Former Bond, Pierce Brosnan though is a ukulele player. I think it might be part of his long standing attempt to get away from being Bond. His latest stab at it is appearing in the ABBA based musical Mamma Mia (even though his singing leaves a little to be desired). I’m pretty sure there’s no uke content in the film, but it seems as good an excuse as any for a bit of ABBA ukulele.

Dancing Queen has a really great chord progression - although a bit of a nightmare on the uke (thanks to plenty of E majors). The best part has to be the, “See that girl…” section where there’s a move between Ab and A on the G-string for each of the chords.

Last Shadow Puppets - Standing Next to Me

Last Shadow Puppets - Standing Next to You (Chords)

As I was saying on ezFolk before I was so rudely expunged, my once a year gambling habit has raised its head with this year’s Mercury Music Prize. It’s a tricky choice this year. Loyalty demands that I root for Laura Marling, being the only nominee I’ve seen playing the uke (in Noah and the Whale’s Five Years Time). And there are some great songs on the album. Rachel Unthank’s album is also damn fine but has no chance of winning.

I think Last Shadow Puppets probably deserve to win just for the hilarity of shouting, “the age of the understantment,” backed by a full orchestra and military drums whilst riding a tank across a Russian minefield. The video for Standing Next to Me is not so epic, but it was directed by Richard Ayoade. He must have a thing for one take videos as he also directed Vampire Weekend’s Oxford Comma.

The chord progression for Standing Next to You is simple enough without anything that’ll trip you up too much.

If you want to get a little fancy, you can play the first section like this:

The Ditty Bops - (I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My) Sister Kate

(I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My) Sister Kate (Chords)

The version of Sister Kate by occasional ukulelists The Ditty Bops might be the most famous and Bob Brozman’s version the most musically adept, but the ukulele version by, Blue Stone Folk School alumni, Pholly is certainly my favourite.

However, I’ve gone with my own favourite way of playing the chords. It’s in the same key as all those versions but with a few changes the quick chord run. It’s actually closest to Bob Brozman’s guitar version. I also like to throw in a few variations on the D7 and G chords: sliding in from one fret lower at the change to each chord and throwing in the occasional E note to create D9 and G6 chords.

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra - It’s A Heartache

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra - It’s a Heartache (Chords)

You can hear this track on their MySpace.

I thought I hated this song. What I actually hated was Bonnie Tyler’s voice because I love the version by WIUO, everyone’s favourite ukulele orchestra (well, everyone who matters).

The best part is the intro with one uke playing the melody and one uke providing fingerpicked backing.

It’s A Heartache Intro (Tab)

If you have no friends, you can still fill in your own chord accompaniment if you move the melody around a little. For example, you can play bars five and six like this:

Buy their EP on the WIUO website.

Requested by Andrew

Shorty Long - Vipermad

Shorty Long - Vipermad

This song is way too much fun. I’ve got a sore strumming finger after playing along with this on too hard and too long. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that Shorty Long’s Pops Bayless and Bob Guz are ukulele legends.

I couldn’t find Shorty Long’s version streaming anywhere. You can listen to a snippet here
or listen to this inferior version in another key here. But I’d suggest you buy it as it’s well worth 99c of anyone’s money.

Vipermad is made up of the same chord progression played in three different keys: C, F and Bb. This set of chords crop up all the time in these hokum type songs. It’s well worth setting them to memory. I’m a little ashamed at how long it took me to get the chords for the Bb section. I knew the other sets of by heart, but I don’t remember ever playing these in Bb before. They work well on the uke though.

Shorty Long have a few chord sheets of their own posted at the bottom of this page.

Requested by Vince

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma (Chords)

To answer Vampire Weekend’s question, Lynne Truss and no one else. But plenty, of people, give a, fuck about, Vampire Weekend,s Oxford Comma, so I decided, to give it, a write, up,

Dead simple chords for this one (G, C, D and Am). And the first part of the solo works really well as a ukulele strumming solo.

The easiest way to play this is to keep your first finger barred across at the 7th fret the whole way.

Boodle Am Shake

Boodle Am Shake (Chords)

Boodle Am Shake was written by Jack Palmer and Spencer Williams in 1926 and has been covered by a number of people since including John Fahey and The Grateful Dead. Lil Rev recently put up a ukulele version that works really well for ukulelists looking to get more familiar with chords further up the neck.

It’s well worth taking a note of the different chord inversions that crop up in the tune: the C7 played at the fifth fret (at the beginning) and the 1st position (at the end of the verse); and the G7 played open and at the 7th fret. When you’re chord soloing, you can create something much more interesting with these variations to hand.

In the instrumental section, he substitutes this descending part for the chords:

Visit Lil Rev’s Internet Junction and don’t miss his article on the ukulele and old time country music.

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