Just sneaking this one in before the deadline. The song was originally written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé and first recorded by Nat King Cole. It’s one of the chillest songs in existence to listen to. But not so chill to play. There are many big moves up and down the fretboard to deal with. And plenty of unfamiliar chord shapes.
The intro and solo are of my own devising. So feel free to mess around with those as much as you like.
Just enough time before the big day to work up a version of Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas. Later recorded by the whole of Emerson, Lake and Palmer as well as U2, Mark Kozelek and many others. But it’s the original I worked from for this arrangement.
Intro: The trickiest part of the song. There are a few switches in the picking pattern which can get you in a jumble. The best way to get these down is to practice them very slowly (slow enough you don’t make any mistakes). So when you speed up, you can just play them on auto-pilot.
There’s also a bar of 2/4 (bar 8) followed by a big jump up the fretboard. Give yourself a little extra time by not holding the 23 notes and moving up during the open g-string.
Verse and Chorus: Much simpler. All done with basic chord shapes and a melody that fits in the first three frets.
Solo: The solo is adapted from Prokofiev’s Troika. It’s a nice, little Christmas ditty that fits well on the uke. Worth learning this section even if you’re not bothered about the rest of the song.
Intro: Starting off in usual fashion with Eb leading into G major. The Bb note (A-string, 1st fret) suggests G minor so the G major chord is a little surprising.
Verse: I’m fingerpicking this section the first two times it’s played. The third I’m using some strumming particularly on the Gsus4-G bit. You can do that every time if you prefer.
Chorus: The Eb chord crops up again creating discord under the line, “Everybody’s having fun,” and suggesting the Christmas isn’t as merry as claimed. If that was intentional, Noddy Holder is a more nuanced songwriter than I gave him credit for.
Bridge: I had forgotten this section existed. But it does give us the Gm that has been hinted at since the intro.
Probably my favourite Christmas song without swears in. And a fitting song for a Christmas where so many people are separated from their loved ones.
The first time I heard this song was a ukulele cover by Ballard C Boyd (who is now a director and producer for Colbert).
The arrangement is dead simple so you can focus on playing it with feeling.
Don’t pay any attention to my fingering. I jacked up the tip of my index finger doing the lazy man’s load. So I’m fingering some things in a weird way.
Buy the original
Christmas tabs
Take Me Home, Country Roads tab
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This is my favourite of the post-Beatle Christmas songs. Easily beating out Ding Dong, Ding Dong and Wonderful Christmastime (which has the worst guitar solo ever committed to vinyl).
My favourite aspect of War is Over is the usual way it uses key changes. Most commonly, you find key changes near the end of the song e.g. in Penny Lane. But here there’s a key change before the first chorus (in this arrangement change from F in the first verse to Bb in the second). But this wasn’t the first time Lennon pulled off an early key change. If I Fell starts in Db before switching to D for the first verse.
I couldn’t let the festive season pass without another addition to my jazz odyssey. This time the Christmas classic written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer in 1953 and made popular by Eartha Kitt.
I used the intro and turnarounds to stretch out a bit and throw in some fancy chords and chromatic notes. I would definitely recommend playing around and coming up with your own ideas for those sections.
The fingerpicking is all over the place. So do whatever feels natural to you.
If you’re interested in more Christmas tabs, check out my Christmas ebooks.