Thunder has many elements that make it great for a uke adaption: a strong melody, Simple chords in the key of C and some fun solo parts. But it also has that damn squeaky-voice section. That section was the hardest to get right and I’m still not sure it entirely works. There’s a note at the 15th fret in that part. If your uke doesn’t go that high you can replace it with the A-string, 10th fret to get a similar effect.
The piece starts out using thumb and two finger picking for the verse and pre-chorus. Then in switches to mostly strumming to blast out the chorus and then uses a combination of strums, picking and flicks (flicking the index finger upwards to hit the A, E and sometimes C strings).
This Frank Loesser song was originally recorded by The Orioles but has become a bit of a ukulele classic since being covered by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt in 2011. I wrote up the chords back then and now time for a tab.
It’s impossible to get away from this song around this time. And this blog isn’t going to give you any respite. But it has been 10 years since I posted the chords so it’s about time for the tabs.
This arrangement starts off with pretty simple with a loose fingerpicking arrangement. After that it’s strummed with a few notes picked and a lot of string muting until a return to fingerpicking right at the end.
In case you’re not familiar with the repeat markings, You play straight through to “D.S. al Coda” the first time. Then you go back to the symbol that looks like a drunk dollar sign in bar 23. Play up to where it says “Da Coda” then skip ahead to the target in bar 59.
Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans. And happy No-Americans-on-the-Internet Day to everyone else. Today I’m thankful for baritone ukuleles. They may be inferior to real ukuleles but sometimes they’re the best tool for the job. Such as for this latest tune from Lana Del Rey.
The picking pattern in the verse and chorus is based around Travis picking (i.e. thumb and two finger picking with the thumb alternating between the D and G strings). But because the G-string is needed for some of the melody notes there are a few exceptions. The trickiest is pair of notes on the G-string, 7th fret in bar 10. Here the first is plucked with the thumb and the second with the index finger.
Technically, I shouldn’t be posting this on White Album week. But it was recorded during the White Album sessions and it is one of the best (possibly the best) Beatles song. If you’re dying for a White Album song have a go at the Blackbird tab.
I’ve kept the arrangement as simple as possible. It has such a strong (and well known) melody it doesn’t need much to back it up. I’m not following any strict pattern for the fingerpicking. For the most part the thumb plays the lowest string in the bar then letting the fingers fall on a string each from there.
In the repeat of the chorus I play a slight variation on the, “And don’t you knowwwwww…” in bars 15 and 16.
After all that I switch to strumming and the occasional finger flick for the boisterous sh-outro. I bash out a couple of adornments in this section. You don’t need to do anything complicated with these so long as you use the appropriate amount of gusto. Both mine are just based on the C7 chord.
For Halloween, a song from the greatest horror film ever made. It’s so densely packed with detail, unforgettable images and jarring juxtapositions. Which has spawned an entire industry of fan theories from the undeniable to the entirely ridiculous to the disturbing and plausible (and if that theory is true it recontextualizes this song in an entirely alarming way).
Midnight, the Stars and You was originally perfromed by Al Bowlly and Ray Noble and released in 1934. Making it out of time for the 1921 photo. The song also cropped up in Snowpiercer and was recently unexpectedly covered by Deerhoof.
The tune gives plenty of room for some jazzy noodling. For the first half of the arrangement I use those gaps to play around with the chords. In bars 7-8 and 11-12 I add in chromatic descending notes. And in bars 19-20 I throw in diminished and augmented chords.
In the second half of the verse I throw in a couple of licks in bars 23 and 27-28. In those licks I’m using the F Mixolydian scale. Which sounds fancy but is just an F major scale with a flatted 7th (i.e. an Eb instead of an E). I picked that up from the Eb used so effectively in the descending run at the end of the original version.
This song has quite a story behind it. When working on the MASH movie Robert Altman attempted to come up with, “the stupidest song ever written,” for the funeral scene. But failed to come up with something suitably idiotic. But told the movie’s composer Johnny Mandel, “All is not lost. I’ve got a 15-year-old kid who’s a total idiot.”
So his son poured his heart into a dark poem about how suicide is the answer to a life full of pain. To which his dad presumably chortled, slapped him on the back and said, “This trash is absolutely perfect, you tiny moron.”
But the joke is on Robert Altman. His son made far more money from the song than Altman did for directing the movie thanks to it being used in the TV show and being covered by acts as diverse as Bill Evans and the Manic Street Preachers.
I’ve kept my arrangement pretty straightforward. There are lots of familiar chord shapes and it’s one finger per string picking all the way through. The only tricky part is the big leaps up the neck in bar 18. Also, watch out for the bar of 2/4 on D7 chord in bar 13. That D7 chord lasts for a bar longer in the original version but it feels a bit over the top to me so I cut it short (as the Manics did in their version).
I decided to write up this song after it cropped up in my post on augmented chords. And it quickly became obvious it would have to be a group arrangement. It’s impressively constructed. For most arrangements I can remove a few bits without losing too much. But all the parts here seem essential to the song.
Nothing too challenging in the vocal part (top left of the video). I’m using fingerpicking but you could easily use a pick for the same arrangement. And a pick would help this part stand out if you’re playing in a group.
This is the most challenging part (top right of the video) and uses both fingerpicking and strumming. You fingerpick in the quieter sections and switch to strumming in the loud bits. Tip: if all four strings are played at once it’s strummed, if it’s three or less it’s picked.
My favourite part to play (bottom left of the video). As well as the great lick in the intro, it gives you a chance to rock out on the big chords in bridge section. To fill out the sound, I’ve used different inversions of the chords.
This part (bottom right of the video) starts and ends harmonizing the opening guitar riff. Between that it’s based on the marimba part in the song. Playing the piano riff an octave higher in the bridge and partially following the vocals in the chorus. There’s a lot of empty space in this part. So if you’re playing as part of a group this part could join in with the chords in the bridge section.
For this arrangement I’ve threaded the melody together with fingerpicked, arpeggiated chords. With this style of playing it’s really easy for the melody notes to get lost amongst the backing notes. So it’s really important to more forcefully pluck the melody notes (indicated with arrowheads above them in this tab) so it doesn’t end up just sounding like picking practice.