Electrelane – Cut and Run

Electrelane – Cut and Run (Chords)

You can listen to a clip of Cut and Run on Amazon

Former indie rockers, Electrelane are another one of those bands you wouldn’t have expected to come out with a ukulele track. But Cut and Run cropped up on their final album No Shouts, No Calls.

It’s a straight forward song with the same chord progression throughout. The only slight issue is that the F chord is played at the fifth fret (with the open C chord shape). If you’re not comfortable playing that far up the neck and not happy with the big jump, you can substitute it for the usual open F chord shape.

Requested by Vivian

Will Smith and Stefan Raab – Men in Black

The video of Will Smith singing Men in Black with Stefan Raab on the ukulele has been knocking around the net for quite a while, but there’s been a spate of people posting about it. No doubt one of the big boys posted about Men in Black on the ukulele and all the two-bit bloggers without a single original thought drifting around the cacophonous wasteland that they seem to think constitutes a brain decide to do a post about Men in Black on the ukulele. So here’s my post about Men in Black on the ukulele.

There are only two chords in it: C#m7 and F#7. When you’re strumming, keep a constant up, down rhythm but hold and release the chords to get some short chord strums along with plenty of funky clicking.

Requested by edi.

hellogoodbye – The Thoughts That Give Me The Creeps

hellogoodbye – The Thoughts That Give Me The Creeps (Chords)

I was very excited when this video cropped up on the YouTube feed on Sunday. hellogoodbye are currently slaving away in the studio and have put up a ukulele demo of a song tentatively titled ‘The Thoughts That Give Me The Creeps’. And rather lovely it is too. Obviously, I immediately picked up my uke and started working it out.

The song is in D-tuning. So start twiddling the knobs or slap a capo on the second fret.

The main strumming pattern is down, down, up, up, down.

The lyrics on the sheet are testament to why I usually just copy and paste lyrics from elsewhere on the net. I’m sure all the real lyrics actually make sense.

I wholeheartedly concur on the tightness of Yo Gabba Gabba!, if only for bringing the joys of Biz Markie to a new generation. Keep it old school, kids.

No indication when this track will be released, but there’s plenty of other hellogoodbye stuff for you to buy here and visit them on MySpace.

Happy Days Theme Tune

Happy Days Theme (Chords)

I thought this one would be completely straightforward, but it presented a few problems. I’m still not really sure about the ending.

In the chord sheet this one, you’ll notice a few letters in brackets. They’re not chords but single notes. So where it says “(A Ab)” you play just those notes on the G string.

When you have to change quickly from Bb or B to C, it’s easier to use the Bb chord shape moved up two frets rather than the open C chord.

I had to cheat the solo a little bit to get it to fit on the uke. I’ve tabbed it like this:

But I had shift each note in bar 3 up one notch on the major scale as there’s a Bb in the original. If you’re playing on a low-G uke, you could play it like this:

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.

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