Loundon Wainwright III – Suddenly It’s Christmas (Chords)

Loudon Wainwright III – Suddenly it’s Christmas (Chords)

Loudon has a great line in exasperated Christmas songs and Suddenly it’s Christmas is my favourite. The track first appeared on the Career Moves album. But I’ve written up the ukulele version released as a single a few years ago.

The song is in the not so uke-friendly key of E with a key change to F#. So I’ve written it up with the uke tuned down half a step to f# B Eb Ab. That makes the tune in the easier keys of F and G. If you want the chords for standard tuning here they are:

Suddenly it’s Christmas (Standard Tuning)

You can, of course, play the chords for the retuned version in standard tuning. You’ll just be playing in a different key.

Suggested Strumming

For the most part, I use this strum:

d – d – d u d u

The only other part comes at the start of verses 3 and 6. With those I do two sets of three down-strums on the first chord.

Here’s how verse 3 sounds:

Verse strum

Twiddly Bits

There are a couple of guitar parts in the song that ape Christmas tunes. Here’s a version of the Jingle Bells crib after verse 1:

Jingle Bells Lick

And the Joy to the World bit at the end of verse 3:

Joy to the World Lick

These are for the tuned down version. If you’re playing in standard tuning just move everything down a fret.

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More Christmas tabs and chords
More Loudon chords