The little instrumental break in the original song sounds great on the uke. So I decided to use that as the intro. It is also the most difficult part of the arrangement to play, though. After that, the verse and pre-chorus are straightforward. The chorus does have a couple of trips up the neck to contend with.
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Bruce Springsteen – I’m On Fire (Tabs)
Springsteen’s steamy I’m On Fire has to be the only seduction song that goes into detail about how wet the protagonist’s bed is.
The intro is my favourite part to play. It’s just and F chord and Dm7 both with the g-string open. But it’s very effective. I add a bit of palm muting here (i.e. resting the side of my picking hand very gently on the strings near the bridge).
The intro is picked thumb and two finger style. After that I go rogue. Throwing in alternate picking and a few strums where it suits.
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The Temptations – My Girl (Tabs)
My Girl is a Motown classic written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White. And first performed by The Temptations. A bit of the Otis Redding version might have slipped into this arrangement, too.
The riff in My Girl (first played in bar 3) shows how effective a very simple riff can be. It just goes up the major pentatonic scale in C and later in F. Things get a little more complicated when you try to mix the melody in. Make sure you play the riff more softly because the notes are in the same range as the melody. For example, in bar 8 the first time you play the A-string, 3rd fret it’s part of the riff and the second time it’s part of the melody. So you need to distinguish the two or it’ll all blur into one.
I’ve used a couple of artificial harmonics in the chorus. If you haven’t got those down yet, you can play those notes at the 15th fret or just keep them at the third fret and play them softly.
There’s a key change in the original version. But it’s pretty tricky to play in D so I’ve cut the solo section before the change to keep things simple.
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Bernstein and Sondheim – Somewhere (Tabs)
A little tribute Stephen Sondheim who passed away last week.
Like the original, the arrangement is sparse. Which lets the melody shine all the more. It also makes it fairly simple to play. There’s a stretch with the pinkie finger in bars 13 and 29. But otherwise not much to trip you up.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers – I Could Have Lied (Tabs)
RHCP’s I Could Have Lied was written by Anthony Kiedis after Sinead O’Connor broke up with him. Who would have thought that relationship wouldn’t last?
Blood Sugar Sex Magik is packed with great riffs and this one is no exception. It works nicely on the uke too. Well worth learning it even if you’re not learning the whole song.
The intro and the verse are all played with thumb and two finger picking. With the exception of the rapid notes on the E-string, 3rd fret in bar 10 where I’m using alternate picking to keep up the speed. The part I struggled with here is the pull-off between bars 10 and 11. It involves holding a note on the C-string while pulling off on the A-string. For an easier version, you can skip the note on the C-string.
The chorus is fairly straightforward with most of it being chord strums apart from the riff.
The solo uses a few elements from the original. But I’ve changed it up to suit my own playing and I suggest you do the same.
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Earle Hagen – Andy Griffith Show Theme (Tabs)
Andy Griffith never made it to this side of the Atlantic, but I was still very familiar with the Andy Griffith Show theme tune somehow.
The bouncy tune and chord stabs make this one a lot of fun to play. Although it’s tricky to play up to speed. Definitely one to play very slowly until you’ve got it under your fingers.
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Warren Zevon – Keep Me in Your Heart (Tabs)
Warren Zevon’s Keep Me in Your Heart is one of the emotional songs I know of. It was the final track on his final album The Wind released shortly before his death. It was used recently by Jimmy Carr to pay tribute to Sean Lock.
It’s a straight-forward one to play. Nothing too tricky and one finger per string picking all the way through.
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Childish Gambino – Redbone (Tabs)
Helpfully, Genius has a video of Redbone producer Ludwig Göransson breaking down all the parts in the song. Including a chord chart and sheet music. As well as being useful for learning the song, it’s interesting to see how the song grew. Well worth a watch.
One of the things he mentions in the video is the oddity of an extra bar in the second pre-chorus. To avoid making the tab unnecessarily long, I’ve tabbed the alternative bars next to each other. So first time around you play just bar 22 then skip to the chorus. And second time, you skip bar 22 and play bars 23 and 24 instead.
The picking in this is one-finger-per-string right up until the solo where I switch to strumming.
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Nerf Herder – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme (Tabs)
Shamefully, I’ve never seen an episode of Buffy. I couldn’t even have hummed the theme tune before it was requested on the Patreon. Even so, it’s such a 90s-fest it gave me nostalgia.
And it’s dead simple. It’s mostly bashing out chords with a few single notes here and there.
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The Cranberries – Zombie (Tabs)
Zombie has had a strange journey from song about the troubles in Northern Ireland to a halloween staple. A change that some people might be happy to see. I remember the band Therapy? (who, unlike The Cranberries, are from Northern Ireland) attacking the song for its over-the-top imagery.
The chords for this arrangement are Em – C – G – D all the way through. Which is the same as the original (although the original is tuned slightly sharp).
The trickiest bit is recreating the vocal crack she does in the chorus in bar 28 then in bars 32-34. You can duplicate the vocal effect by stopping the strings ringing right after the hammer-on.
The solo is made up mostly of double stops on the E- and A-strings. That does create a few tricky sections (like 46) bit is more straightforward than most solos.
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