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.
Here’s my take on Jack Black and Kyle Gass’s lewd ode to soft loving. But if you don’t tell anyone what the title is, it functions nicely as a pleasant tune. The jump up the neck at the start of the chorus (bars 19 and 20) is particularly sweet.
And there are a few jumps up the neck to deal with. But the trickiest part is the rapid pull-on and hammer-on section in bar 26. If you struggling with that, you can replace the whole 10-12-10-8 with the A-string, 10th fret.
Here’s my take on, part-time uker and full time Belieber, Sufjan Stevens’s heartbreaking Casimir Pulaski Day. I also love Mikaela Davis’s harp cover, so a bit of that has snuck into the arrangement too.
The song gets much of its power from being blunt and straightforward. So I’ve kept the arrangement stark and tried to play it directly without too much emotion.
The picking is mostly thumb on the g- and C-strings and the index and middle on E and A respectively. The big exception is the rapid notes on the C-string at the end of each stanza e.g. bars 9 and 17. For those, I recommend using alternate picking as it’s too quick to comfortably play with your thumb.
The other big exception is the trumpet solo, where I switch to strumming to give things a lift.
My favourite part of Halo to play is the intro. It fits so nicely on the uke I decided to use it as the outro too. Things stay fairly straightforward to play in the verse. All that is played with one finger per string picking.
But in the bridge and chorus Beyonce stretches her vocal range which means a trip up the neck. The arrangement goes as high as the 14th fret where it’s tough to play cleanly. You’ll also need to pick more forcefully so to keep the volume of the note at the same level as notes lower on the neck.
The picking in the rest of the song is more haphazard. For the quick notes, I’m using alternate picking to keep up.
Following up Bob Dylan with another “Blue” song: When the Stars Go Blue by Ryan Adams (one of the many sensitive singer-songwriters I listened to who turned out to be a full-time shithead). Although it was a bigger hit when Bono and The Corrs covered it.
I’ve paired that with Semisonic’s only hit Closing Time as they have almost identical choruses.
I hope you brought a change of clothes because your eyes are about to piss tears thanks to Andy Dwyer’s heartbreaking tribute to Li’l Sebastian.
The trickiest part of playing this is fighting through the tears. There are also some quick bits of picking and a rogue bar of 2/4 on “horsiest friend” near the end.
If you want to play along with the original, put a capo on the second fret.
Before I get thrown in music jail, this was not my idea.
To be fair, the music of Sk8er Boi does have a few things to recommend it. I do enjoy the move from Em to Eb while keeping the two note riff on the A-string. And the chorus is undeniably catchy.
I went into this tab expecting it to be pretty straight-forward. But there are a few tricky twists in this arrangement. The trickiest bit comes in bars 18-19 with the pinkie playing the 10th fret. I tried a few different ways of playing this section and couldn’t come up with anything that felt natural.
While I was tabbing the Frankie Valli track the line, “Can’t take my eyes off you,” kept reminding me of this track. And it’s not the only familiar part of this song. The bridge is a dead-ringer for No Surprises.
The arrangement uses a mixture of picking and strumming. As a rule of thumb, if it’s just one note it’s picked. And if it’s more than one, it’s strummed. Don’t worry about hitting exactly the same strings as are tabbed. As long as you’re holding down the right chord it’ll sound good.
The original is in the key of E. So I’ve moved it up into the more uke-friendly key of G. Plus there’s a key change in the bridge to A. Which carries though into the final chorus making it two frets higher than the earlier choruses.
Having dragged my keyboard out of its dank cave earlier this week, I threw a bit of cello on this track. The arrangement works fine without it though.
This month’s most popular request on Patreon was Joern’s suggestion of Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World by Tears for Fears. Which is understandable in the current situation. But, boy, is it gloomy. I like some dour music but this one is a little too bleak for me.
On the upside, the melody is very easy to play. Other than the little trill at the end of the verse, every note is part of the chord it’s played over. So your fretting hand just has to play the chords. In the verses and the first part of the chorus I’m picking with the thumb on C, index on E and middle on A.
The tricky part is the riff in the intro and at the end of the chorus. Those parts use one finger per string picking and took me a bit of practice to get reliably down. And be sure to play the “maaaaad world” notes with a little extra force to make them stand out.
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