Neutral Milk/Uke Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers Pt.1 (Chords)

Me a year ago: “That’s the second ukulele-based cover of the entire In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album I’ve ever heard (after this one). I should write up a song from that.”

Me a week ago: “I should probably get round to that now.”

So this is long overdue and now fairly irrelevant but it’s still an excellent song. And pretty easy since it’s only three chords. I included the soprano version of the chords in the chart above but the song is played on baritone so here’s that version of the chord shapes.

Suggested Strumming

For the main strumming pattern you can use this:

d – d – d u d u

Which sounds like this (slow then up to speed):

Main Strum

Do that twice for the F and once each for the C and Bb in the first two lines. Then twice each for the C and Bb in the next line.

The only tricky bit is the quick change in the intro, verse ends and instrumental parts. Here you strum like this:

Tricky Strum

After that, you’re back to the easy pattern for C and Bb.

Twiddly Bits

I’ve included tab for the two accordion/trumpet/melodica parts in the chord sheet. The first part is pretty simple and sounds like this on uke:

Break

It’s played twice through (as here) on the original but only once in the NUH version.

The outro section is a bit more tricky. It’s played higher up the neck. Try to use your pinky for all the notes on the 8th fret. That way your other fingers will be in the right position for the other bits.

Outro

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