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.
I’ve used some artificial harmonics in the intro because they’re the spaciest sound you can get on a ukulele. But you can play this section without them and it won’t be a problem. Or you could come up with your own intro.
The first verse is the simplest part of the song. Then comes the “Lift Off” section. Pretty much any rising figure will work here. You can go as simple as grabbing a note and sliding up the neck. I took the opportunity to have a bit of fun with effects.
The second verse is more much of a challenge. There are a lot of moves up and down the neck and a few finger-twisting bits. On the upside, it has the strange change from F major to F minor that mirrors the shift in the song from triumph to tragedy.
After some quick chord changes, the solo starts up. I’ve stayed fairly close to the original here. Just adapting bits for uke. But I couldn’t resist throwing in a Day Tripper reference on the A chord (bar 44) as the original comes so close to it.
While not quite in the league of November Rain, Guns N’ Roses’ acoustic lighter-swayer Patience is still a bit of an epic. So for this arrangement I’ve trimmed down the intro and outro and skipped the repeat of the verse and chorus.
The intro follows Axl’s whistling for the first four bars before playing the first solo section. Just a bit of bending to deal with here.
The main solo section starts in bar 28 with some sliding around. My favourite part is the lick in bar 32-33. I wasn’t sure if this bit was going to work on uke, but it ends up fitting neatly.
Things switch up in bar 39 for the outro with some loose strumming and a fun sliding solo section.
I found the melody in the outro (from bar 47 on) tricky to arrange. Usually, you’d have a G note over the G chord somewhere. But the melody sticks with the F# (E-string second fret) and A notes from the D chord. That makes it hard to pull out the chord changes in this section clearly. But if you keep the chord changes clear in your head you should navigate it okay.
More rock tabs
My tabs of Sweet Child O Mine and November Rain are both on the Uke Hunt Patreon for concert level backers and up.
It’s always fascinating to see how bands deal with the death of musical fads and Travis are a prime example of it. Their debut album Good Feeling was full of Oasis-y rockers about good times and picking up girls. Which would have flown off the shelves if it had been released in the Britpop era rather than in 1997, the year Radiohead killed off the genre with OK Computer. After the lukewarm success of the album, they shamelessly reworked themselves into a Radiofriendlyhead sounding band on The Man Who (even slagging off Wonderwall on the first verse of the album) and had a breakthrough Why Does It Always Rain On Me?. Setting the scene for Coldplay who released their debut a year later.
The chords for this one are very easy. The only challenge is some rapid picking (which you’ll need to do some alternate picking) and pull-offs.
I had always assumed the first verse was mocking George Harrison’s Taxman. But it appears Sunny Afternoon was released a couple of months before Taxman. So phenomenally rich people moaning about taxes must have been the rage at the time. Thank god that’s over.
The tune starts off with a bit of a stretch but an otherwise simple descending riff. Be sure to release the pressure with your fretting hand shortly after playing to keep the notes short. The melody is reasonably straightforward as well.
The problems only start when you have to combine the descending run with the melody notes in bars 35 to 40.
The chords here are dead simple. It’s just G-D-Em-C all the way through (i.e. the I-V-vi-IV progression or the I’m Yours progression as ukers know it). So you have plenty of space to make that beautiful melody sing.
There’s a lot of scope for playing the supporting notes to suit your taste. So long as you hold the chord down and keep them quieter than the melody notes. I’m using one finger per string picking throughout.
And one more thing. Thanks to Tim Apple, this tab is going to be forced onto every device with the next iOS update.
As befits its slacker nature, many elements of this song are very straightforward. The melody of the verse is just groups of two notes a semitone apart and are taken directly from the riff. And when they key changes for the solo, there’s no smooth transition it’s just straight from one key to the other and back again. But there’s no denying the riff and the solo are immediately catchy.
As it’s a slacker anthem, I’m taking a loose approach to this one. In the intro, I’m fingerpicking the riff (one finger per string style). Then switching to strums with a few picked notes for the rest of the song. The solo is by far the most challenging part. I’ve adapted it a great deal from the original, so feel free to adapt it further to suit your own playing.
Putting it together made me realise it’s structured similar to Rhapsody in Blue (and that other rhapsody). It’s made of a few very catchy but unrelated sections that rub together and sometimes outright interrupt each other.
The song starts in that fashion with the lyrical, “I want to…” line being interrupted by them yelling bicycle. You can bring out that contrast by playing the lyrical section smoothly and the shouty section brashly and more staccato.
It then switches from major to minor for the hard-edged verse. I like to give the strings a bit of a snap for this section.
The middle section, which returns to a major key and a more gentle style cuts, the second chorus shor and shifts to12/8 time. Make sure you’re warmed up before attempting the big stretch up to the 11th and 12th frets.
The next chorus starts off two frets higher (making it a bit more difficult to play) before dropping back down to the original key in bar 31. Strumming the strings above the nut does a good job of imitating the bells at the end of this section.
The solo is the trickiest part to play. The original has two guitars playing answer and response phrases. Moving both to one ukulele means some big, quick moves up and down the neck. It’s tricky. I certainly make a hash of it.
This is one of my favourite songs of last year and no amount of boomer wailing is going to convince me otherwise. I’m also a big fan of her policy of wearing her jammies for every media appearance for the last year.
The song starts out very simple with an F-Bbmaj7 chord progression in the verses. The picking pattern is very ramshackle. I’m just using whatever falls nicely. With the melody mostly played with alternate picking. The rhythm of the melody does get a little complex. So I recommend listening to the original recording and following that rather than trying to read the rhythms.
Once the middle hits, things speed up but get much more simple rhythmically. I start introducing more strums here with just the melody notes picked.
I recorded this video last year for the anniversary of Scott Hutchison’s death. And I’ve been a little reluctant to get around to the tab as I’m still cut up about it.
The trickiest part of the arrangement comes in the bridge. In this section, I’m trying to combine the guitar riff and the vocals so there are two melodies to keep track of at once. The fretting in some places isn’t intuitive, so check the video if you find yourself getting tangled up.
And be sure to keep a steady tempo when the chorus hits so you don’t do what I did and speed up horrendously.