The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go like all good punk songs, it’s just four chords. And the melody and chords alternate so you’re only doing one of them at any given time. Just make sure you’re bashing it out.
The only slightly unusual element is the song shifting to double time in the chorus. So you’re strumming twice as fast with this pattern:
d – d – – u d u
d – d – – u d u
d – d – (then a picking section)
Pink Floyd’s Time is a real epic so I’ve done the most un-Pink Floyd thing of all time and shortened the song by trimming the solo and cutting out the more atmospheric parts.
Intro: Starting off with the ticking sound. Made by muting the strings high up the neck and plucking close to the bridge. Then a lick to lead into the verse.
Verse: This section is forceful and confrontational so keep the chords short and stabby.
Chorus: The chorus switches from the brooding G minor section to a blissed out Ebmaj7. Let the chords ring out in this section to match the mood.
Solo: I’ve changed this considerably from the original. So feel free to make changes for your version. I’m using the G minor pentatonic for the solo plus the occasional A note.
Outro: The outro throws in a few curve balls. It throws in a Gb and modulates to Bb. Then ending on a glum sounding Ebm – E – Cm.
It’s crazy it’s taken me this long to cover R.E.M.’s Shiny Happy People given how perfectly it captures my personality.
Intro: For such a light-hearted song, there’s a bunch going on musically. There are three key changes and a change of time signature before the vocals kick in.
The song starts in 6/8 time in the key of G# (G in the original) for a relaxed intro before it kicks into 4/4 in bar 4. That shifts into the riff in the key of Bb. The riff is very fun to play. Worth learning even if you’re not bothering with the rest of it.
Verse: The verse moves into the key of G minor. A less abrupt key change since Gm is the relative minor of Bb. The verse bounces up and down the fretboard. But it’s not too challenging to play.
Chorus: Things are a bit more difficult in the chorus with the three, slightly overlapping, voices covering a large range.
Outro: This is made up of the main riff and Kate Pierson’s “Happy peeepooooooole” bit. There’s room to play around with the chorus melody here if you fancy stretching out a bit.
Down in a Hole by Alice in Chains fits on uke better than I was expecting. There’s a nice mix of fun bits and challenging bits.
Intro: This sets up the Gm – F – C chord progression that runs through the verse and pre-chorus. I’ve thrown in a few twiddles based on the acoustic and electric parts in the original. Definitely room for your own ideas here.
Verse: I played around with just doing one of the vocal parts here (first heard in bar 9). But I think the vocal harmony is too good to ditch.
Pre-Chorus: This is the hardest part of the song by some distance. It’s high up the neck and fiddly. You could get away with simplifying the section. Either by repeating parts or moving notes around. But I’d be reluctant to get rid of the dissonant C# (E-string, 9th fret).
Chorus: Mostly bashing out the chords in the chorus. Things get tricky towards the end though with a trip up the neck and a short lick.
Outro: A reprise of the intro but with the baffling choice of ending on an A major chord (despite the whole song being gloomy and minor).
With Nirvanna the Band the Show back in action, I was inspired to put together a version of the Wii Shop theme It works well on uke. But there are a lot of unusual chord shapes that might take a while to get under your fingers.
The stomp-clap era has been receiving a sometimes unhinged level of vitriol recently. But I still enjoy it so here’s Mumford and Sons’s The Cave.
Intro: The intro works very nicely on uke. Well worth learning even if you’re not bothered about the rest of the song.
I’m using thumb-and-two-finger picking in this section. And switching to one finger per string in the other sections.
Verse: The verse melody is very similar to the riff. So, to distinguish them, I’m using fretted notes rather than open strings. There are slight variations in the verses. But I don’t think anyone would notice if you played them all the same.
Chorus: This section uses a mixture of strums and picking. With the strums getting more intense each time. The final chorus really ramps up the intensity and is the hardest part to play.
Instrumental: Here, you’re bashing out the verse chords and the riff. There are also some hammer-ons that give it a very Beirut feel.
Something has become particularly associated with the ukulele since Paul has been regularly playing it on uke in tribute to George Harrison. And it transfers over to one very nicely.
Intro: A brief, one-bar intro. Make sure you bend the note at the 7th fret before you pick it.
Verse: The verses are built on two chromatically descending lines. Firstly, descending notes on the A-string set against a C chord. Secondly, descending notes on the g-string set against an Am chord.
With the steady pace of the song, there’s nothing too challenging here.
Bridge: Things get a bit more challenging in the bridge. The action shifts up the fretboard and there are a couple of stretches to deal with.
Solo: The trickiest section. And it’s such a great solo, I’d advise against changing it too much.
Coldplay’s Trouble is a nice, simple one. Even the solo is just a fancy version of the chords.
Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter. startuh out on the B-sahhh but thuh words don’t quite line up now, an’ the song jus’ sorta rolls, on a wizard on a whale, an’ nowah suddenly it’s a fan faverrrrah. Ohahnahha.
This one took a fair bit of knocking around to fit onto uke. There are only three chords in it (C, G and F) but there are many jumps up and down the neck and some stretches to deal with. The intro in particular is fiddly but a lot of fun to play.
Intro/Outro: A Little Wing/Lenny-style intro with plenty of flying up and down the neck. Make sure you include plenty of silences and changes in dynamics to keep things interesting.
Verse: Nothing difficult to play here. Just a few slides and many pull-offs.
Chorus: A little increase in difficulty with a stretch up to the 6th fret in bar 26.
Solo: Some tricky stuff here too. I’ve included elements from the original. But you can adapt it however you feel. I’d recommend sticking fairly close to the C major pentatonic scale. But you can include some C minor pentatonic for a more bluesy feel.
Bridge: This section is very sparse. But it demonstrates how effective just changing the order of the chords can be. It still uses the C, G and F chords but this section has a very different feel.
Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer is full of hair-rock bravado, so I wasn’t sure if it’d work on uke. But it has a very strong melody, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed playing it.
Intro: I had to change the talk-box riff a fair amount to get it onto uke. This version runs more smoothly than the original. And it doesn’t go on for 45 seconds.
Verse: The verses don’t have anything too challenging. It’s all Am – F – G in open position.
Pre-Chorus: Things build in intensity here but don’t get any more difficult.
The second pre-chorus is cut short. As well as reducing the number of bars, they also cut a beat out of bar 44 (making it a bar of 3/4). This combined with the lack of any preparation in the chords, means the key change really hits you in the face.
Chorus: The first chorus is challenging enough. But changing to C minor for the second chorus makes it even trickier. I originally arranged it to replay the chorus in the original key. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable way to play it if you want to avoid the added difficulty. Even Jon Bon Jovi seems in two minds about it. But it’s such a moment in the song I decided it’s worth tackling.
Solo: The solo has a few tricky moves too. But, once everything is octave shifted, it plays nicely on the uke. The one thing worth skipping would be the very fast lick in bar 40. It’s very difficult to play (I certainly didn’t get it cleanly in the video) and I think something simpler could be just as effective.