One Day Like This - Elbow

The trick with this song is to let it build, and avoid every verse sounding like the last. build slowly, like Hey Jude.
 

Nice version from the West Cork Ukulele Orchestra as well

(Single strums)
F 2010
Drinking in the morning sun
F/A# 2011
Blinking in the morning sun
F/C 2013
Shaking off the heavy one
F/A# 2011
Heavy like a loaded gun

F
What made me behave that way?
F/A#
Using words I never say
F/C
I can only think it must be love
F/A#
Oh, anyway
F/A#                           F
It's looking like a beautiful day

(strum with more energy, still light)

F
Someone tell me how I feel
F/A#
It's silly wrong but vivid right
F/C
Oh, kiss me like the final meal
F/A#
Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight

F
Cause holy cow I love your eyes
F/A#
And only now I see the light
F
Yeah Lying with me half-awake
F/A#
Oh, anyway
F/A#                           F
It's looking like a beautiful day

(more energy)

(Same as 1st verse)
When my face
Is chamois-creased
If you think
I'll wink, I did
Laugh politely
At repeats
Yeah, kiss me
When my lips are thin

(lots more energy)
Cause holy cow
I love your eyes
And only now
I see you like
Yeah, lying with me
Half-awake
Stumbling over
What to say
Well, anyway
It's looking
Like a beautiful day

5553                     3331
So throw those curtains wide
     x565
One day like this
                5553
A year'd see me right

The way you make me feel (groovy version)

I was sent this by a twitter friend, and it is a cool groove daddy-o! Thanks Tabitha. The lyrics below are closer to MJs original, but season to taste as they say.

 Eb = 3331 G# = x343 Bb = 3211

F          Eb             F          Eb
Pretty baby with those high heels on
F           Eb               F      Eb
You give me fever like [STOP] I've never, ever known
F             Eb          F     Eb
You're just a product of loveliness
F          Eb              F          Eb
I like the groove of your [STOP] walk, your talk, your dress
Bb           G#          Bb      G#
I feel your fever from miles around
Bb             G#        Bb             C
I'll pick you up in my car and we'll paint the town
F            Eb        F       Eb
Just kiss me baby and tell me twice
F               Eb       F
That you're the one for me

Chorus:
                    F                 Eb       F
The way you make me feel
           Eb       F              Eb       F
You really turn me on
             Eb         F                  Eb         F
You knock me off of my feet
          Eb        F               Eb        F      Eb
My lonely days are gone


F          Eb              F      Eb
I like the feelin' you're givin' me
F            Eb        F      Eb
Just hold me baby and I'm in ecstasy
F          Eb            F       Eb
Oh I'll be workin' from nine to five
F          Eb         F        Eb
To buy you things to keep you by my side
Bb       G#          Bb      G#
I never felt so in love before
Bb            G#            Bb          C
Just promise baby, you'll love me forevermore
F           Eb           F    Eb
I swear I'm keepin' you satisfied
F                Eb       F
Cause you're the one for me

Chorus

Bb       G#          Bb      G#
I never felt so in love before
Bb           G#          Bb      G#
I feel your fever from miles around
Bb            G#            Bb          C
Just promise baby, you'll love me forevermore
F           Eb          F    Eb
I swear I'm keepin' you satisfied
F                Eb       F
Cause you're the one for me

Chorus x2

Eb              F         Eb              F
Ain't nobody's business, ain't nobody's business
Eb              F         Eb              F            Eb        F
Ain't nobody's business, ain't nobody's business but mine and my baby
        Eb  F  Eb             F
hee hee!      hee hee! ooh!

Eb          F   Eb            F
Give it to me, give me some time
Eb             F     Eb                     F
Come on be my girl, I want you to be with mine
Eb              F         Eb              F            Eb        F
Ain't nobody's business, ain't nobody's business but mine and my baby's
Eb  F            Eb
    Go on girl!   aaow!

St. Patrick's Day: Danny Boy

Another sad song of longing and death, but beautiful all the same.

It was used in a fantastic scene in Miller's Crossing by the Coen Brothers.
This isn't exactly as I remember it...
C             C7                        F      Fm
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
C                       Am                D7  G
From glen to glen and down the mountain side
C                    Cmaj7               F    Fm
The summer’s gone and all the roses dying
C          Am           Dm     G      C
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide

G            Am       C         F         C
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
G            Am   G  Am          F         D7   G
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow
            C        F              C Em Am Fm
And I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
C        Am            Dm      G        C
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so

C               C7                   F    Fm
But if he come and all the roses dying
          C        Am             D7 G
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
C                Cmaj7                     F    Fm
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
C              Am     F   G         C
And kneel and say an Ave there for me
G           Am           C        F      C
And I shall feel, though soft you tread above me
G           Am          F            D7 G
And then my grave will richer, sweeter be
              C         F                C Em Am Fm
For you will bend and tell me that you love me
C            Am            Dm      G        C
And I shall rest in peace until you come to me

St Patrick's Day: Carrickfergus

Carrickfergus, like many Irish songs, has English words overlaid on an older Gaelic song. In this case, it's likely a few hundred years old, but the modern version only dates form the 19th century and the Industrial revolution. Songs have a long life, like trees.

It is interesting that the original Irish song was a baudy happy one about wanting to shag a noblewoman, but the modern English one is one of sad longing, nostalgia and alcoholism.

I'd sing it myself but I've a cold, so here's my favourite version:


D      Em  A          D      Bm
I wish I was  in Carrickfergus,
         Em       A        D    Dsus4
only for nights, nights in Ballygran
             Em  A            D     Bm
I would swim over the deepest ocean,
         Em    A          D   Dsus4
the deepest ocean, for my love to find

                D   Bm                   A                
But the sea is wide, and I cannot swim over
                Bm  D             A
And neither have I the wings to fly
             Em  A            D     Bm
I wish I could find me a handy boatman
         Em    A       D   Dsus4
To ferry me over, to my love and die.

 D      Em    A                        D      Bm
My childhood days, bring back sad reflections
         Em       A           D    Dsus4
of happy times, spent so long ago
             Em  A            D     Bm
my boyhood friends, and my own relations
         Em    A                  D   Dsus4
have all passed on now, like the melting snow

        D      Bm                     A                
but I'll spend my days, in endless roaming
              Bm   D            A
soft is the grass, my bed is free
               Em  A              D  
oh to be back now, in Carrickfergus
               Em      A              D
on that long road down, to the salty sea


    D     Em   A               D      Bm
and in Kilkenny, there it is reported,
                     Em     A                D   Dsus4
there are marble stones there, as black as any  ink
              Em      A           D        Bm
With gold and silver, I would support her,
                 Em   A                  D     G D
But I'll sing no more now, 'till I get a drink.


        D       Bm           G      A                
For I'm drunk today, and I'm seldom sober,
           Bm D       G       A
A handsome rover from town to town
            Em       A            D        Dsus4
Ah, but I'm sick now, my days are numbered,
             Em    A       G      D
Come all you young men and lay me down.
             Em    A       G      D
Come all you young men and lay me down.

Far From Any Road (True Detective HBO Theme)

A great theme for a great show, thanks to T Bone Burnett's choices and of course the Handsome Family who wrote/perform it. Incidentally, it is about a cactus that only blooms for a few hours one night of the year. Creosote bushes are indeed poisonous. My Strum here is strum down fast, then down slow then up fast, then up down up fast. It is hard to write a strum! I think it sounds like Tick Burrr tock, tock tick tock. Where tick is down and tock is up. Make sense? Nope. That's why it is better to learn these things from someone directly or just keep playing around until you get something you like that fits.

I've done it in Cm, the original is Am, but I can't sing that low. Now thinking I should have done it in Dm...


I play Cm as 0333 and D# as 3331. with G# I play x343, it is the easiest way.

Cm              G
From the dusty mesa
Fm                    Cm
Her looming shadow grows
Cm              G
Hidden in the branches
Fm                 Cm
of the poison creosote

         D#
She twines her spines up slowly
    A#
Towards the boiling sun
     Fm
And when I touched her skin
      G#             Cm
My fingers ran with blood

 Cm              G
In the hushing dusk
          Fm              Cm
Under a swollen silver moon
    Cm           G
I came walking with the wind
    Fm                 Cm
To watch the cactus bloom

       D#
A strange hunger haunted me,
       A#
The looming shadows danced
    Fm
I fell down to the thorny brush
     G#              Cm
And felt a trembling hand

  Cm                   G
When the last light warms the rocks
          Fm         Cm
And the rattlesnakes unfold
  Cm               G
Mountain cats will come
    Fm             Cm
to drag away your bones

      D#
And rise with me forever
   A#
Across the silent sand
         Fm
And the stars will be your eyes
         G#                 Cm
And the wind will be my hands