Ukulele Hunt

Tag: 90s

  • Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains (Tabs)

    Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains (Tab)Download

    I’m back and I’m starting the year how I intend to carry on: with pessimistic miserablism in the form of Garbage’s Only Happy When It Rains.

    Verse: Not wasting any time with an intro. Since the melody does a lot of switching between A and G, I’m taking advantage of the re-entrant string and using the open A and G notes. I love how well the bent notes at the fifth fret work here.

    Chorus: Switching to a major key for a fairly jaunty chorus melody.

    Solo: Nothing too flashy here. If you do want to get flashy, you could replace some of the notes at the third fret at the start of the bars in the second half with notes bent at the second fret. That’s more true to the original but tricky to pull off (particularly on the E chord).

    Outro: A bit of stretch here when you’re playing Am then hitting the A-string, 5th fret.

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  • R.E.M. – Endgame (Tabs)

    R.E.M. – Endgame (Tab)Download

    An instrumental track from R.E.M.’s classic Out of Time.

    Intro: Starting off with thumb and two finger picking.

    I love the way this riff works with open strings on the uke. So much so, I considered inserting into the song itself. In the end, I saved it for the outro.

    Verse: By far the hardest part of the song comes with the big jumps down the fretboard in bars 13-16. Well worth practicing these bars by themselves until you’ve got them down.

    Chorus: Switching to one finger per string picking and moving into strums at the end of the chorus.

    Bridge: This section is just chord strumming.

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  • The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sometimes Always (Tabs)

    The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sometimes Always (Tab)Download

    Tabbing a Mazzy Star song inspired to me to bash together this Hope Sandoval featuring Jesus and Mary Chain song. And “bash” is an accurate description. It’s a route 1 arrangement with just strumming and melody.

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  • Mazzy Star – Fade Into You (Tabs)

    Mazzy Star – Fade Into You (Tab)Download

    By far the most challenging aspect of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You is the timing of the melody. Thanks to Gen X disaffection, the melody keeps coming in later than you’d expect.

    In the verses, you’d expect the melody in bars 7, 11 and 19 to hit right at the start of the bar (as it does in bar 15). Instead, it comes in a quaver late (or eighth note if you prefer).

    In the chorus, it’s similar in bars 23, 27 and 31. But I found these even trickier to get the hang of.

    No such problems in the solo, though. Here you can mess around however you please using the chords as a basis for your twiddling.

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  • The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 (Tabs)

    The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 (Tab)Download

    1979 is the Smumpkins’s biggest hit but was almost cut from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Which is confusing as that album could do with a dozen songs cutting but not this one.

    This arrangement is mercifully easy after the nightmare of Send Me on My Way. This one is all strumming and nothing too difficult with the fretting hand. So you can really concentrate on mixing up the dynamics and enjoying the chill Gmaj7 chords.

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  • Rusted Root – Send Me on My Way (Tabs)

    Rusted Root – Send Me on My Way (Tab)Download

    Rusted Root’s Send Me on My Way was a bit of a flop when it was first released. But it’s jaunty nature and semi-comprehensible lyrics have given it success in soundtracks to Ice Age, Matilda and that millipede.

    There are a lot of rapid notes to get your fingers around in this one. Even at this slightly slowed tempo, it’s tricky to pull off.

    Intro: The classic riff. Making use of the high-g string to avoid moving up and down the neck.

    Verse: No avoiding moving up and down in this part. But it’s not too difficult until the end of bar 14 with the mabubadeesay mabubadeeum bit (lyric sheets claim he’s saying, “You know what they say about the young,” but there is no way). This includes my favourite trick: playing the same note on different strings (g and E) to allow for quicker picking.

    Chorus: Busting out the strums for the chorus. Nothing too difficult here.

    Bridge: The trickiest bit with the very quick “Send me on my way”s. I’ve cut down the number of notes in some of these to make them easier to play.

    Solo: The funnest bit. As long as you keep the strumming up, you can play around with this section as much as you like.

    Outro: Just strumming out the chords in the outro followed by a stripped down version of the riff.

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  • Radiohead – Creep (Tabs)

    Radiohead – Creep (Tab)Download

    Intro: Starting off with a fingerpicking played with one-finger-per-string picking.

    Verse: Mixing together the melody with the fingerpicked chords before switching to strums for the ck-ck bits leading into the chorus.

    Bridge: Easily the funnest bit of the song to play. It gets a bit cramped at the top of the uke, though, so it requires a bit of careful fretting.

    Outro: Just a stripped down version of the verse.

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  • Alanis Morissette – Hand in My Pocket (Tabs)

    Alanis Morissette – Hand in My Pocket (Tab)Download

    The intro and verses are very straightforward. It’s one chord all the way through and you don’t have to move up the neck.

    But things get much trickier in the transition into the chorus. There’s more movement up and down the neck and some of the twiddles are a challenge. Bar 16 is the section I had to practice the most.

    The harmonica solo is very simple. There’s lots of room for being more ambitious here (particularly with the chords just being a C drone) but I like the simplicity of the original.

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  • The Beautiful South – A Little Time (Tabs)

    The Beautiful South – A Little Time (Tab)Download

    The Beautiful South are one of those bands that are so British I can’t imagine them making it huge around the globe. Nevertheless, they have some great tunes so I wanted to tab A Little Time. Plus what remains of The Beautiful South recent toured with, Uke Hunt favourites, Keston Cobblers’ Club.

    There are a few tricky manoeuvers in this arrangement. But one simple thing is the chords. The intro, verse and solo all have just one chord: G.

    There are a few challenging aspects. First is the speed of some of the notes. I use a lot alternate picking to get up to speed. Plus my version is slightly slower than the original (I think you could go even slower and get away with it).

    The second bit that’s a challenge is using your pinkie to slide up from the 5th to the 7th fret. I definitely need more practice with that to be as confident as I am with other fingers.

    But the part I had most difficultly with was the switch between the verse and chorus. In the original, this is where Briana Corrigan interrupts David Rotheray mid-sentence. An effective way to represent an argument in a duet but challenging to create a separation on the uke.

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  • Johnny Cash/NIN – Hurt (Tabs)

    Johnny Cash/NIN – Hurt (Tab)Download

    This arrangement of Hurt is very much based on the Cash version. But I was a massive Nine Inch Nails fan as an angsty teen, so some of that version might have slipped through.

    The plodding pace of this song makes it pretty easy to play. Just make sure you give the strings some welly in the chorus to recreate the thundering, steady pianos.

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