READIN

Sunday, December 7th, 2003

🦋 Father Christmas

The Crooked Timber thread on annoying Christmas songs inspired me to think of "Father Christmas" by the Kinks, one of very few non-annoying popular Christmas songs. (Thanks to Apostropher for telling me which song I was thinking about. Google supplied me with lyrics and I came up with some chords that seem about right. The rhythm is still giving me a little trouble. Here is Tim Harris' transcription, which seems a little better than mine, he plays it in G while I prefer C.

posted morning of December 7th, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, August 28th, 2003

🦋 Counting Song

This is Sylvia's first composition:

One little one goes in the room and turn, turn, turn
Two little ones go in the room and turn, turn, turn
Three little ones go in the room and turn, turn, turn
Four little ones go in the room and turn, turn, turn
Five little ones go in the room and turn, turn, turn

posted evening of August 28th, 2003: Respond
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Wednesday, August 6th, 2003

🦋 Here I Go

This is a fun song, by Syd Barrett. It is also quite easy to play on guitar, as I discovered this evening. I cannot guarantee the chords here are accurate but they sound alright. (Woops -- some of those chords were way off -- these should work a little better.)

 C                       G
This is a story bout a girl that I knew
           C                      G
She didn't like my songs and that made me feel blue
           B♭              A           G
She said a big band is far better than you.

    C              Am
She don't rock and roll
G
She don't like it
    C            Am
She don't do the stroll
         G
Well she don't do it right
    C            C7
And everything's wrong
       F           F6
And my patience is gone
       C
When I woke one morning
      G
And remembered this song.
C Am
G
   Kinda catchy,
C Am
G
 I hope 
              C          C7
That she will talk to me now
    F      F6
And even allow me
   C                                 G
To hold her hand and forget that old man.
F                        C  C7
I strolled around to her pad
F                            C  G
Her light was off and that's bad
F                       C        G
Her sister said that my girl was gone
F                       G            
But come inside boy and play play play me a song.

I said yeah
Here I go
She's kinda cute don't you know
That after a while 
Of seeing her smile
I knew we could make it
A-make it in style.
  
So now I've got, all I need
She and I are in love, we've agreed
She likes this song, and my, others too
So now you see my world is...
Because of this tune.
  
What a boon this tune,
I tell you soon we'll be
Lying in bed
Happily wed
And I won't think of that girl
What she said.

The key thing in picking this song is that nearly every time there is a G chord followed by a C chord, you need to end the measure of G by hammering on from an open G string to an A. That will establish the mood of the song -- for everything else you can pick and strum pretty loosely. Keep a nice walking pace, a little faster in the middle of the song.

posted evening of August 6th, 2003: Respond