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  • Queen – Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Tabs)

    Queen – Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Tab)Download

    Intro: The hardest part of the whole song is the chromatic run between bars 3 and 4. I spread the notes between the strings to make it a bit easier to play but it’s still a big challenge.

    Verse: Lots of jumps up and down the neck to deal with. Bars 9-12 are fun to play (once you’ve practiced it enough not to have to think about it).

    Bridge: The tempo slows right down here which helps to make it easy to play.

    Solo: Another section that’s difficult to play. But I mostly ditched the chords for this section so it’s just single notes.

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  • Bob Dylan – You Belong to Me (Tabs)

    Bob Dylan – You Belong to Me (Tab)Download

    You Belong to Me was originally written by Price, King & Stewart in 1952. But I first heard the Bob Dylan cover on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. And it’s the Dylan version this arrangement is based on.

    Intro: A very brief intro just to establish the key and feel. There’s plenty of room to expand this to the whole chord progression if you fancy stretching out.

    Verse: There are a couple of jumps up and down the fretboard to deal with here. But the tempo is slow and it’s straightforward to play. I am very loose with the timing and phrasing in the video.

    The second time around, there are a few extra twiddles to keep things interesting.

    Solo: The solo is heavily based on the melody. It’s a very sentimental song, so I went a bit cheesy with it. You’re free to dirty it up in your own version.

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  • Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea (Tabs)

    Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea (Tab)Download

    Beyond the Sea is an anglicized version of Charles Trenet’s La Mer and regularly crops up in film and TV (most notably the prison kitchen scene in Goodfellas).

    Intro: Starting off with some big strums to emulate the brass in the original.

    Verse: Nothing too difficult to play in the verse, but there are a ton of chord changes to keep track of.

    Bridge: This section has three key changes (to A, to C and returning to the original key of F). Each time it uses the trick of leading into the change with the V7 chord of the new key. So you have E7 at the end of bar 18, setting up the key of A. And G7 at the end of bar 24, leading in the key of C. Finally, you have C7 in bar 30 to lead back to the original key of F.

    Solo: The solo is based on different inversions of the chords in the verse with a few melodic elements added. Plenty of room here for your own ideas.

    From there, it’s back to the verse and finishing with a simple chromatic lick.

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  • Stephen Sanchez – Until I Found You (Tabs)

    Stephen Sanchez – Until I Found You (Tab)Download

    In a rare case of being almost up to date, here’s a tab of Stephen Sanchez’s retro ballad and TikTok smash Until I Found You.

    Intro: The retro touches start in the intro with a classic IV to minor iv chord change (C to Cm) in this case. Which shows up in a million Beatles songs as well as Creep and Wake Me Up When September Ends.

    Verse: The verse starts with the unmistakeable interval from the Crazy melody. The verse melody has a very lazy, slurred timing to it. I’ve kept some of that but I have straightened it up a little.

    Chorus: The chorus is more straight forward in terms of timing. The slide up to the seventh fret is the only bump.

    Solo: A very simple solo. Just bashing out the chords and doing a little slide. But doing that accurately and quickly is challenging.

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  • Old Crow Medicine Show/Darius Rucker – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)

    OCMS – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)Download

    Old Crow Medicine Show’s Wagon Wheel is pretty much ubiquitous wherever ukuleles are strummed. Or any instrument is strummed. Even Kesha has had a go at it.

    Part of the reason it’s so popular is its long gestation taking in Curtis Jone’s Roll Me Mama and Bob Dylan’s mumbled demo Rock Me Mama before OCMS’s Ketch Secor gave the song its current form. It’s not a coincidence that a song passing through so many hands would shape it into something so widely loved. Which is why the current music copyright insanity is so harmful.

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  • Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tabs)

    Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tab)Download

    Here’s my take on Brandi Carlile’s Joni Mitchell influenced and very catchy You and Me on the Rock.

    Intro: The Mitchell influence kicks in right away with a Big Yellow Taxi-esque strumming riff.

    Verse: And continues with a wordy verse. It’s tricky to hit every note in the melody. So I’ve taken a few liberties. Don’t stress to much about hitting every note and string exactly.

    Chorus: Things calm down a bit in the chorus. And I move from strumming only to include more picking. Even with the picking I’m doing a bit of “flick up” motion so I stroke the next string along. Making the note softer but still supporting the main melody.

    The chorus ends with a bar of 2/4 but it flows naturally.

    Bridge: There’s a short bluesy lick leading into the bridge introducing the more minor feel with the addition of Eb (the first chord outside the bog-standard I-IV-V in the rest of the song).

    Outro: The outro is cut down from the original so it’s just the second half of the chorus.

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  • Willie Nelson – Stardust (Tabs)

    Willie Nelson – Stardust (Tab)Download

    A tab of Willie Nelson’s version of Stardust (written by Hoagy Carmichael) for everyone who likes a bit of Willie. In thanks for his contributions to ukeing as father of Amy Nelson of Folk Uke and grandfather of Raelyn Nelson.

    There are loads of less common chords in the song. And a fair amount of hopping around the fretboard. But the tempo is very slow and there’s plenty of room for changing the phrasing of the melody. So this one is fairly straightforward to play.

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  • The Band – The Weight (Tabs)

    The Band – The Weight (Tab)Download

    A version of The Weight in tribute to Robbie Robertson. Robertson appeared on the Playing for Change version alongside some uke from Taimane.

    Intro: Usually, you’re free to play around with the intro. Not in this case. Robertson’s intro is iconic and doing anything other than playing it as close to the original as possible is sacrilege.

    Verses: The melody in the verses is a little fiddly, but it’s the third verse that’s most challenging. There’s an extra campanella bit in bar 37 (“Waitin’ on Judgement Day”) and a trickier ending to the verse.

    Chorus: I haven’t tried to cram in all the vocal lines in the chorus in order to keep things clear. Most obviously, the arrangement doesn’t include the overlapping “you put the load…” lines (bar 46).

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  • Placebo – Pure Morning (Tabs)

    Placebo – Pure Morning (Tab)Download

    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.

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  • Rod Stewart – Maggie May (Tabs)

    Rod Stewart – Maggie May (Tab)Download

    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.

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