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.
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.
It was a nice surprise to see Paul McCartney playing Oh! Darling live for the first time at the Taylor Hawkins memorial. It’s a nice blend of early-era R&B Beatles in the verses and the harder-edged, bluesier later Beatles in the chorus.
I first heard Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ Bad Reputation as the Freaks and Geeks theme.It’s a very straightforward punk song that’s ideal for just bashing out.
I’m using strumming the whole way through this. Including using strum blocking to strum the individual notes. You can pick these notes if you prefer, but you lose some of the energy and aggression of the strums.
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.
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.
Following on from These Days with another Cotten-picking arrangement: a rare White Stripes acoustic song We’re Going to Be Friends. But this is easier than These Days as the thumb alternating between the g- and C-strings through the whole song.
The melody is very simple and repetitive almost like a nursery rhyme. But there are slight variations between the verses that you need to include to create at least a little variety.
The only big variation comes in the bridge section where they go far out and include a fourth chord. But you’re still picking the same basic patterns.
For a quick bonus, here’s another ditty Conan uses on his podcast arranged for low-G uke:
I tabbed R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion a while back. So high time I did a song from their follow-up Automatic for the People.
Intro: Plenty of room to play around with ideas in the intro. I’m just picking out notes from a few chord inversions.
Verse: Just two chords (C and D), a stately pace and a contained melody.
Pre-Chorus: A classic pre-chorus, building up the energy into the chorus. So it starts at the same level as the verse, builds complexity and moves up the neck in bars 26 and 27. Then switches from picking to strumming in bar 28.
Chorus: The trickiest part of the song with chord changes coming thick and fast.
Solo: Another place you can introduce your own ideas. Mine is a similar idea to the intro with notes coming mostly from the chords. I’m also doing plenty of sliding around to emulate the slide guitar in the original.
This arrangement goes straight from the solo in the chorus. So I’ve taken a hint from the pre-chorus and ending the solo with a move up the neck and then some strumming.
Intro: All down-strums here to give an authentic dad-rock feel.
Verse and Pre-Chorus: Switching to fingerpicking using a one-finger-per-string set up.
Chorus: Adding some strums here on the Em chord and picking more heavily than before. You can beef it up even further by strumming all the way through the final chorus but you’ll lose definition in the melody.
Solo: A quick and easy solo. It’s one I made up myself so you’re welcome to change it however you like.
In tribute to Taylor Hawkins.
The song starts off with a bit of dissonance between the Ab on the E-string and the open A string. The Ab also provides dissonance as the first note in the chorus melody (bar 16).
My first arrangement contained strumming almost all the way through. So in the intro I was strumming the second half of bars 1 and 2. And also strumming in the gaps at the end of every other bar in the verse. If you want to do it that way, go for it. But I decided to create a bit more of a contrast been the sections by picking adding picking to the quieter sections.
For the “solo” section of the tab is more in keeping with the spirit of that section rather than the actual notes. It’s really just a breakdown cooling things off before bringing the rock back. So as long as you build up at the end, you’re free to do whatever you like with this section.