Ukulele Hunt

Tag: USA

  • Paul Simon – Graceland (Tabs)

    Paul Simon – Graceland (Tab)Download

    I’ve already (inevitably) covered Call Me Al from Paul Simon’s Graceland. So it’s a good time to follow up with the title track.

    Intro: The original starts with a bit of strumming before the picking riff. But on the uke there’s a drop in the energy when you go from strumming to picking. So this arrangement starts with the picking (with a touch of Stone Roses) and the opening C is much shorter.

    Verse: The verse melody is loose and conversational, so there’s plenty of room to rephrase it so it flows naturally for you. Which I’ve done plenty of.

    Chorus: The start of the chorus uses a bunch of techniques: slides, pull-offs, muting. Which makes it fun to play. The mutes in this section (e.g. bar 19) are done by playing a standard chnk (the one with x’s on all the strings), then leaving your strumming hand muting the strings, and plucking the g-string with your thumb (for the x on the g-string).

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  • Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag (Tabs)

    Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag (Tab)Download

    Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag has become a bit of a uke favourite with the UOGB’s version. I haven’t entirely decided if it’s an irresistible earworm or an irritating song with terrible lyrics. But I did have fun playing it.

    Intro: Muted strums on the g and C-strings, then extra emphasis on the E and A-strings.

    Verse: One finger per string picking with a few supporting strums where there’s no melody.

    Chorus: The first chorus is full on strumming. It finishes off with a bar of 2/4 then a little riff (that’s my favourite part of the song).

    The second chorus in this arrangement (the third in the original) has constant thumb picking on the C-string while the melody notes are picked on the E and A.

    Bridge: A bit of stretch up to the seventh fret here. But the big challenge is the “She doesn’t know…” bit which first crops up in bar 27. It gets pretty fiddly in the cramped higher frets.

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  • The Magnetic Fields/Peter Gabriel – The Book of Love (Tabs)

    The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love (Tab)Download

    The Magnetic Fields were one of the bands that got me to take the ukulele seriously. So it’s long past time I did a version of The Book of Love. It seems that (thanks to its use in the finale of Scrubs) Peter Gabriel’s version is the best known. But, on this occasion, the original remains my favourite.

    This arrangement uses a few elements of the Gabriel version (including the slower tempo and a few bits of filigree) but mostly sticks to the original.

    It’s a very simple song with the same chords the whole way through: G – C – D11 – G. D11 is just a standard D chord with the g-string left open.

    The intro and solo are just me noodling around with the melody and chords. With the intro in the first position and the solo higher up the neck. Lots of scope for your own take on these.

    I’m using one finger per string picking for this up to the last bar of the solo. There I switch to strums for the final chorus.

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  • Tina Turner – Proud Mary (Tabs)

    Tina Turner – Proud Mary (Tabs)Download

    A version of Proud Mary in tribute to Tina Turner. It’s one of those covers that completely eclipse the original version. It’s so perfect it’s hard to believe it wasn’t written for her.

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  • The B-52’s – Love Shack (Tabs)

    The B-52’s – Love Shack (Tab)Download

    Love Shack isn’t the most uke-friendly song but it is a ton of fun to play.

    Intro: Playing the melody using strum blocking i.e. strumming but muting everything but the string that’s playing the melody. That means you can play single notes but still keep things energetic and forceful.

    Verse 1: Starting with Kate Pierson’s part played high up the neck before switching to Fred Schneider’s part lower down the neck. Schneider’s part is very talky so the melody here is somewhat created.

    Pre-Chorus: A nice easy little section.

    Chorus: The section I had most trouble playing. It’s tricky to combine the guitar riff and the vocal line smoothly. The second chorus is a little different from the first and third.

    Verse 2: Four bars of talky section, four bars of strum blocking then some simple strumming to finish with.

    Bridge: The section that works least well on the uke. I thought about leaving it out but it’s too iconic. It’s starts with a reworking of the bass riff then goes into a shortened version of the “Bang, bang, on the door” bit. I’ve even included an attempt at the “Tin roof, rusted” bit. Although I wouldn’t blame you for missing any of this out.

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  • Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tabs)

    Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tab)Download

    Iggy Pop’s The Passenger is a straight-forward basher. There’s the same chord sequence the whole way through:

    Am – F – C – G

    Am – F – C – E7

    The E7 chord is a bit of an oddity. In my arrangement I’m avoiding playing the g-string (by muting with my thumb) to keep the chord ambiguous as the whether it’s major or minor.

    Later in the song (starting on bar 48) the melody hits a G note which clashes with the Ab in the E7 chord. So in those cases, I’ve substituted in a G chord to make it sound more natural on the uke. And I’ve stuck with that G chord in the final chorus as well.

    The one slightly fancy touch comes in the second half of the intro (bars 5-8). This riff based on the lead guitar part which I thought it deserved showcasing.

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  • Green Day – Basket Case (Tabs)

    Green Day – Basket Case (Tab)Download

    It’s a very simple song. Other than bars 27-28, it’s all first position beginner chords and a straightforward melody. The only thing that makes it difficult is the tempo. So be sure to practice slowly and gradually build up speed.

    One slight oddity comes in bars 6 and 15. Here there’s a hammer-on on the C-string from a note way back in the previous bar. I do this to create a subtle change to the G chord in order to emphasise the much stronger second note in the bar.

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  • Miley Cyrus – Flowers (Tabs)

    Miley Cyrus – Flowers (Tab)Download

    Hold on to you hairpieces, I’m covering a song while it’s still popular: Miley Cyrus’s recent hit Flowers.

    Intro: Just picking out a Cmaj7 chord.

    Verse: Nothing too difficult here. Mostly standard chords and a melody in the first position.

    Chorus: Here’s where it gets tricky with a lot of movement up and down the neck.

    Unusually, the chorus starts out with a rest. From there, it’s straight to the hardest bit of the piece with the hammer-on between bars 15 and 16 (I make a horlicks of it myself the second time around).

    Next in bar 16 is octave slide which is a nod to the song’s bass line.

    And another challenge in bar 22 with a hammer-on and pull-off run.

    Bridge: A mercifully easy section to recover from the chorus.

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  • Dooley Wilson – As Time Goes By (Tabs)

    Dooley Wilson – As Time Goes By (Tab)Download

    As Time Goes By is most famous for its inclusion in Casablanca. But the song was written a decade earlier by Herman Hupfeld for the long forgotten musical Everybody’s Welcome.

    Intro: A quick campanella intro. There are a million things you could do here.

    Verse: The slow pace of the song make this fairly simple to play. Just a trip up the fretboard in bar 7 to deal with. Another opportunity for your own spin at the end of each verse. I went jazzy in the first verse and bluesy in the second.

    Bridge: Bringing out the strums for the bridge.

    Solo: The solo is based on the melody shifted up an octave. With a few passing notes, a pre-bend (i.e. bending the note before plucking it then releasing) and a descending-ascending run in bars 23-24.

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  • Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now (Tabs)

    Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now (Tab)Download

    Here’s a rare cheerful songs I like: I Can See Clearly Now. I worked from the original Johnny Nash version but I’m more familiar with the Jimmy Cliff version so a bit of that might have snuck in.

    I’ve tried to keep the arrangement loose and breezy to match the song. So focus on the mood when you’re playing rather than nailing down every note exactly. 

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