Placebo’s Pure Morning is hilariously unsuited the ukulele. But it’s always fun to have a go at those. You can decide for yourself whether it actually works because I’m not sure.
There’s no chord progression at all in the song. It’s just an E drone the whole way through (Eb in the original). To emphasise that, I’m playing an E on both the open E-string and on the C-string 4th fret whenever I get the chance.
As the song builds, the arrangement moves up the neck and uses some octaves. If you don’t have a 14th fret, you can always just mute the A-string. Or playing it open will work.
Intro 1: The album version of the track starts with Martin Quittenton’s (completely out of place) little contrapuntal piece in 3/4 time. I almost skipped it but it’s a fun tune that’s worth learning by itself.
Intro 2: The second intro is much more in keeping with the song’s melancholy mood.
Verses: The verses are fairly straightforward. It’s mostly strummed with a few notes picked out here and there.
Solo: Loosely based on the original with lots of sliding around the fretboard. As always, throw some ideas of your own in here.
Intro: It’s a fun riff to noodle away on. I recommend learning this bit even if you don’t learn the whole song. (Put a capo on the first fret to play along with the original.)
Verse: The intro and verse are all fingerpicked with thumb on the C-string, index on the E and middle on the A. The verses are very repetitive, so I cut the second verse down to half. You might want to do the same with the first verse too.
Chorus: Like every Nirvana song, there’s a quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic going on. So switch to strumming and bash out the chorus.
Outro: The riff again. This time played with a bit more abandon and hitting the open C-string any time you feel like. Then a dead simple ending.
Sunday Morning is the poppiest song The Velvet Underground’s debut album. It has a laid back, easy going vibe. And you have two days to learn it so get to work. Watish!
Intro: Played high up the neck to give a music box feel. But if it’s too cramped up there or your uke doesn’t have enough frets, you can play the same picking pattern with any inversion of F and Bb and it’ll work.
Verse: Switching from thumb and two finger picking in the intro to one finger per string for the start of the verse. It’s tricky to bring out the melody in bars 13-16 with the melody switching from the A-string down to the C. So emphasise those as much as you can while keeping the chill vibe.
Back to thumb and two finger picking from the Fmaj7 in bar 17 to bring out the descending low notes.
Chorus: Bringing in a few strums in the chorus for contrast.
Solo: The original solo has a bunch of hammer-ons, pull-offs and double stops. So I’ve used that concept for this solo rather than recreating it note for note.
Outro: Similar to the first bars of the verse. But here there’s a slide up to the fifth fret instead of the open A-string. I toyed with playing it this way in the verse and decided to hold it back for the outro. But give it a go in the verse and see how you feel about it.
This arrangement of Green Day’s Good Riddance is played with fingerpicking the whole way through (one finger per string picking style). I love the way the intro sounds played that way and fingerpicking brings out the melody.
But I originally arranged it strumming so it’s closer to the original and it works well. Plus it’s easier to play that way. So you have my full permission to play it that way (not that you need it).
Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black has to be one of the best albums of the noughties. I tabbed Rehab a while back. And it’s high time I tackled the title track.
The chord progression is Gm – Cm – Eb – D in the verse and chorus. That drop down from Eb to D is so effective in conveying a sense of defeat.
The verse melody acts in a similar way starting out on just a single note repeated (G in this arrangement) and ending by dropping down one fret on the D chord.
To emphasise the Zevonness, my arrangement kicks off with a loose interpretation of Life’ll Kill Ya‘s intro. So long as you’re working within the F-Bb-C chords, there’s plenty of scope for your own ideas in the intro.
From there, I’ve tried to keep everything very simple and easy to play.
The only tricky bits are some fast hammer-ons and pull-offs at the end of bar 24 then into the Break section. Again, you can adjust this section to your taste. If you pick out notes from the chords and melody, you can’t go wrong.
Intro: The original starts with a bit of strumming before the picking riff. But on the uke there’s a drop in the energy when you go from strumming to picking. So this arrangement starts with the picking (with a touch of Stone Roses) and the opening C is much shorter.
Verse: The verse melody is loose and conversational, so there’s plenty of room to rephrase it so it flows naturally for you. Which I’ve done plenty of.
Chorus: The start of the chorus uses a bunch of techniques: slides, pull-offs, muting. Which makes it fun to play. The mutes in this section (e.g. bar 19) are done by playing a standard chnk (the one with x’s on all the strings), then leaving your strumming hand muting the strings, and plucking the g-string with your thumb (for the x on the g-string).
Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag has become a bit of a uke favourite with the UOGB’s version. I haven’t entirely decided if it’s an irresistible earworm or an irritating song with terrible lyrics. But I did have fun playing it.
Intro: Muted strums on the g and C-strings, then extra emphasis on the E and A-strings.
Verse: One finger per string picking with a few supporting strums where there’s no melody.
Chorus: The first chorus is full on strumming. It finishes off with a bar of 2/4 then a little riff (that’s my favourite part of the song).
The second chorus in this arrangement (the third in the original) has constant thumb picking on the C-string while the melody notes are picked on the E and A.
Bridge: A bit of stretch up to the seventh fret here. But the big challenge is the “She doesn’t know…” bit which first crops up in bar 27. It gets pretty fiddly in the cramped higher frets.
The Magnetic Fields were one of the bands that got me to take the ukulele seriously. So it’s long past time I did a version of The Book of Love. It seems that (thanks to its use in the finale of Scrubs) Peter Gabriel’s version is the best known. But, on this occasion, the original remains my favourite.
This arrangement uses a few elements of the Gabriel version (including the slower tempo and a few bits of filigree) but mostly sticks to the original.
It’s a very simple song with the same chords the whole way through: G – C – D11 – G. D11 is just a standard D chord with the g-string left open.
The intro and solo are just me noodling around with the melody and chords. With the intro in the first position and the solo higher up the neck. Lots of scope for your own take on these.
I’m using one finger per string picking for this up to the last bar of the solo. There I switch to strums for the final chorus.