The Who Won’t Get Fooled Again (Chords and Tab)

The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again (Chords) (Classroom Instruments Version

I’ve considering writing up this one in the past but have shied away from it because of all the lengthy, meandering sections. But the recent “classroom instruments” version they did with The Roots on Fallon strips the song down to the bare essentials and works really well for ukulele. Although I wish my classroom would have had that sweet Kamaka Captain Kirk is playing.

I’ve written up the chords with a capo on the second fret to make things easy to play. Judging by the chord shapes he’s using, it looks like Townshend is in baritone tuning. But I can only hear Captain Kirk’s uke in the recording.

Suggested Strumming

Intro: You can use one strum per chord. Or use the main strum from the verse for the G-F-C move.

Verse: Start off with this on the G:

d – d – d u d u

Then a chnk and an up strum on F. Followed by a chnk u d – d u on the C.

x u x u d – d u

Then the same strums respectively for the D-Bb-F progression.

Together it goes like this:


Verse strum

Chorus: d – d u on each of the C and Gs. This once each for the F-D:

d – d – d u d u

Followed by one down-strum on each of the C and Csus4 chords. Then returning to the verse strum at the end.

Bridge: This twice for every chord before returning to the verse strum for the A-G-D progression:

d – d – d u d u

Outro: Mix up the verse strum with some giant windmill strums.

Twiddly Bits

The intro from the classroom version is very simplified from the original (which meanders all over the place). I’m picking this one thumb and two finger style.

This lick crops up in the original version over the D-F section of the chorus. It doesn’t crop up in the classroom version but I thought it was too good to ignore it. So I gave it a quick ukeifying.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
The Who – Blue, Red and Grey (Chords)
The Who: Chord Riffs

UkeTube: The Who, Bridge City Sinners, Tommy Emmanuel

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Bridge City Sinners – Run From the Sun
The Who, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots – Won’t Get Fooled Again
Tommy Emmanuel and Feng E – Classical Gas
Taimane – System of Down, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Beethoven
Remi Harris – Sketches #35
Zoe Bestel and Tobias Elof – The Blackest Crow
tenspd – Voicemail
Robin Evans – Badger Milk
Laura Currie – The Lovecats

Friday Links: Ukulele Podcasts, Sheet Metal Uke

A highly-entertaining and informative episode of Abe’s Ukulele Show with Christopher Davis-Shannon. And Ukulele is the New Black catches up with Uke Hunt favourites Jim Boggia and Molly Lewis on the JoCo Cruise.

Amelia Clark (maker of this Uke Hunt inspired Christmas card) has released a ukulele girl birthday card.

On Video
– Bud Sugar visit Gambia and make a fantastic documentary.
Anderton’s try out some ukuleles.
Ukulele made of thousands of pencils.

Window Shopping
1920s Rexcraft uke made of sheet metal.
Big Island HONU solid body electric.
Kiwaya x Kurosawa Music Shop 60th Anniversary Model.

The Zombies – This Will Be Our Year (Tab)

The Zombies – This Will Be Our Year (Tab)

I owe all y’all an apology. And not just for using the term, “all y’all.” I thought I had posted this tab months ago until someone let me know I hadn’t.

The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle (which this song comes from) seems to be criminally overlooked. If you’re into psychedelic 60s pop you absolutely have to check it out.

My favourite aspect of this song is the descending chromic line that runs through the chord progression. It starts with the G on the E-string. Then moves down through Gmaj7 and G7 to the open E-string in C6. Then it moves down to the C-string, third fret before dropping to the C-string, second fret for a D7 chord. Then it skips a fret for the open C note on the final C6.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More 60s tabs and chords

Uke Hunt is Twelve

Uke Hunt turned 12 this month. According to WebMD a 12 year old’s, “brain is able to handle more complex thinking now. This goes hand in hand with his expanding vocabulary. He’s better at putting what he’s feeling into words.” It’s about damn time.

Here’s a round-up of the goings-on of the last year.

May 2018

– I usually find writing tribute posts cathartic. It feels write to honour artists by playing their music and helping others do likewise. But the suicide of Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit hit me in a way that’s still sore today. Nevertheless, I put together a a ukulele version of The Woodpile. Which is a song I relate to so much it could have been written for me.
– One of the joys of the past year has been Einer Bankz’s ukulele collaborations with a vast array of hip hop artists. Back in May Mass Appeal did a short documentary on him.
– Andy Eastwood premieres his composition for ukulele and string quartet.

In tabs: John Williams’ Imperial March and David Beckingham’s take on We’ll Meet Again.
In chords: Father John Misty’s darkly comic Mr Tillman.

June 2018

– The fourth Big Chord Quiz.

In tabs: Charli XCX’s Boys and Amy Winehouse’s Rehab.
In chords: Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run and, inspired by the Last of Us 2 trailer Doc Watson’s Little Sadie

July 2018

Paul Mansell on playing classical ukulele.
– The ukulele that travelled to the North Pole and was signed by Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, and Calvin Coolidge among many others.

In tabs: Leonard Cohen’s Winter Lady and guest tabs from Choan Galvez and Joao Tostes.
In chords: Lou Reed’s Perfect Day.

August 2018

– I’ve been trying to improve my jazz playing over the last year. I’ve still got a long way to go. But I’m particularly pleased with how my arrangement of Summertime turned out.
– Paying tribute to the legendary Aretha Franklin with A Natural Woman and I Say A Little Prayer.

In tabs: Aline Kelly’s excellent version of Leo Brouwer’s deliciously discordant Etude V and riffs from Yorkshire bands.
In chords: The welcome return of twenty one pilots with my favourites song of theirs to date Nico and the Niners

September 2018

What’s the deal with augmented chords?

In tabs: A rare ukulele-group tab from me: Abba’s Mamma Mia and You’ll Never Walk Alone.
In chords: Frank and Nancy’s Somethin’ Stupid.

October 2018

Halloween season with The Doors’ People are Strange and Midnight and the Stars and You from The Shining.

In tabs: The MASH theme Suicide is Painless.
In chords: Phoenix’s Lisztomania

November 2018

– Jake Shimabukuro exposed where he gets his amazing uke skills from.
– I officially ended my oft-broken no Beatles rule with Hey Jude, Honey Pie and five intros and solos from The White Album

In tabs: Lana Del Rey’s Venice Bitch on baritone and St Vincent’s New York.

December 2018

In tabs: Mariah’s All I Want for Christmas is You, Sousa’s Liberty Bell and What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
In chords: Elton John’s Your Song and The Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen in Love.

January 2019

In tabs: Imagine Dragons’ Thunder and all the riffs from Weezer’s covers album.
In chords: Escapism from Steven Universe

February 2019

– The Billie Eilish takeover of the internet started with Bury a Friend and When I Was Older.

In tabs: Joanna Newsom’s On a Good Day, Tom Waits’s Johnsburg, Illinois and Choan Galvez’s Drama-in-a-box
In chords: ,David Glen Eisley/SpongeBob – Sweet Victory and The Monkees – I’m a Believer.

March 2019

In tabs: The trend of lowercase only titles continues with Billie Eilish – when the party’s over and Ariana Grande – thank u, next.
In chords: Bob Dylan/The Pogues – When the Ship Comes In and Scott Walker – 30th Century Man.

April 2019

In tabs: Thomas the Tank Engine theme, Dream a Little Dream of Me and Herman Vandecauter’s take on Georg Philipp Telemann’s Siciliana and Allegro.
In chords: The Billie Eilish juggernaut rolls on with 8 and Bad Guy.

Lesley Gore – You Don’t Own Me (Chords and Tab)

Lesley Gore – You Don’t Own Me (Chords)

More than fifty years after its release and Lesley Gore’s impassioned demand for female self-ownership is still depressingly relevant.

You Don’t Own Me is a masterclass is using music to convey the meaning of the song. The depressed verses are played in a minor key while the forthright choruses switch to major. The song also shifts up half a step three times. Each time making her sound more strident and forceful.

As effective as the key changers are, they do make this song tricky to play. A chunk of the tune is in G#. A key that is uke unfriendly and odd in terms of musical theory. For reasons I might go into at a later date, the Fm chord in the middle should really be referred to as an E#m. I went with Fm though to avoid confusion.

In researching this post, I found out a recent cover of this by Grace managed to stack up a quarter of a billion views without me knowing it existed.

Suggested Strumming

I like to count this tune in 6/8 time as 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3.

For the main strum use this three beat long pattern:

d – d u d –

Intro: You can do just six down-strums per bar for four bars. Alternatively, you can pull of from the A-string, 1st fret to the open A-string and follow that with a bar of six down-strums and a bar of four. Which sounds like this:


Intro strum

Verse and Solo: Main strum twice each for the first three chords (G – Cm – D7 in the key of G). Then once each for the next two before returning to the start of the progression. For the final chord, do the main strum four times. Which goes like this:


Verse strum

Chorus, Middle and Outro: Main strum four times for each chord.

Twiddly Bits

The solo mostly restates the melody. The trickiest part is the run at the end which requires a big jump up the fretboard.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More 60s tabs and chords

UkeTube: Sonder Bombs, Robin Evans, Charming Disaster

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
The Sonder Bombs – I don't have one anymore
Robin Evans – Come On In My Kitchen
Charming Disaster – Blacksnake
George Elmes – Roadrunner
Jósean Log – Canción Sin Nombre
Julián Rodríguez – Lorenzo
EatMyUke – Abbey Road
The Burney Sisters – I Wanna Be Real
Zoë Bestel – Moment of Madness
Honoka – Don't Stop Me Now

Friday Links: Pronunciation, Dumbo and Train-Track Uke

Brad at Live ‘Ukulele has an incredibly thorough discussion of how to pronounce ‘ukulele taking in Hawaiian history, overpopulation and punctuation.

The live action remake of Dumbo has some uke action on the soundtrack.

3D printed wooden ukulele.

On Video
Sol Hoopii in Down To Their Last Yacht (1934).
Building a solid body baritone ukulele.


Window Shopping
Tangi and Kawika collaborate on a violin-style ukulele.
Petros Tunnel 13 ukulele apparently using redwood timbers salvage from the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Siskiyou Summit Tunnel #13.
Vintage Knutsen harp ukulele.
Pono 8-string tenor.

Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards – Ja-Da (Tab)

Cliff Edwards – Ja-Da (Tab)

I first came across the song Ja-Da in Herb Ohta’s Sophisticated Ukulele tab book and had a lot of fun playing his version. I recently had my interest in the tune reawakened when Aline Kelly poster her tab of it.

My version is heavily based on Aline’s version. It’s in the same key and I use the same chords (although often in a different inversion). The melody is largely the same but I do shift the notes around. For example, rather than picking the E-string, 3rd fret in bar 3 I play the open g-string.

From bar 21, I start throwing in a few little runs. I’m just using notes from the F major scale for that. So I highly recommend trying a few things out for yourself and seeing what you can come up with.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More jazz tabs and chords

K-Pop Riffs and Intros

As much as I’m a fan of dreary and depressing music, I like pop music to be at least a little joyful. And K-pop has been injecting some much needed fun into pop music recently. And I’m a fan of the way they tend to cram as many styles of music into a single song as possible. So you get little sections like the rock riff in Seventeen’s Clap, Blackpink’s blarring trumpets in Kill This Love, and the jazzy 20’s lick in Momoland’s I’m So Hot that are prime for a ukeing.

If you like these short tabs, you can find lots more on my Instagram.

BTS – Boy with Luv

Blackpink – DDU-DU DDU-DU

Blackpink – Kill This Love

Seventeen – Clap

Momoland – I’m So Hot

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