Mike Love – No Regrets (Chords and Tab)

The Beach Boys may have released a ukulele song but it’s another Mike Love that has prompted a batch of tab requests. And I didn’t have any hesitation in fulfilling them. It’s an instantly likeable song and there are plenty of interesting uke tricks going on.

It uses a number of chord inversions (different versions of the same chord – the inversions are indicated by an apostrophe after the chord name), combines picking and strumming, changes keys and has a nifty ukulele solo.

He uses a low-G tuning for the song but everything works well on a standard tuned ukulele too. There are a few bits in the solo that sound a little off with high-G but it’s easy to adjust those.

Suggested Strumming

I’m not going to go into the whole thing because there are a whole lot of chord changes here. But most start with the G-string being plucked with the thumb. Then followed either by d u or d u d u depending how long the chord lasts. For the really quick changes just do one down strum.

In the last verse he switches from strumming to picking. You can use this pattern with the thumb (p) alternating between the G and C-strings while the index finger (i) handles the E-string and the middle finger (m) the A-string.

Twiddly Bits

The song’s solo is really effective. It uses the chords from the chorus along with an alternating picking pattern. Like the pattern before, the thumb alternates between G and C, the index finger plays E and middle A.

You don’t have to follow this solo note for note. I’d recommend building up your own solo using the same ideas. Start off by taking the chord progression from the chorus and picking the pattern above from the last chorus.

From there you can add in additional notes from the C major scale. If you’re not familiar with the scale, steal a few of the notes he adds in (or kick the dust out of your brain and learn it, I suppose).

And if you want to get fancier you can start changing the picking with the index and middle fingers so you can add in more notes. But don’t screw with the thumb; keep that constant.

There are a few more little licks in the song. They’re all at the end of the chord sheet. This lick transitioning from the key of D back to C is really effective. But the last note doesn’t fit if you’re playing a high-G. So it’s best just to hold the C-string, 2nd fret at the end for the whole beat.

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