Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

SOTU 709: Trains and Boats and Planes and...

AlanDP

This is a shortened version of this song. Also, this is one of those songs that calls for a ukulele tuned to Eb, so I used my Eb ukulele.

dr_mitch

I've caught up. The playlist shoukd be up to date, with 19 songs and one documentary. Thanks for racing to catch the theme (surely I should be able to manage a better pun here).

Here's a mildly cheeky song I've just learned and recorded today (and I admit, needs a little more practice) written by one of the princes of the UK Ukulele scene, Phil Doleman.

OnlyUkeThatMatters

Back in the oughties, like 2006 or '07, a friend who worked for an online magazine asked me if I'd write a "love song to public transit" and perform it, busking-style, on Portland's aerial tram.

I love public transit, so I said, "Yep." Then I spent a few hours writing and rehearsing; I took a few more hours to meet my friend and a crew at the tram; and I rode up and down a few times singing my little song to random (maybe un)lucky tram passengers.

Another friend of mine edited the video, then the magazine posted it to YouTube. I was immediately disappointed that I received no credit as songwriter or performer in the video or its description. I was doubly disappointed when I learned that my friend the video editor made a few hundred bucks for his labor, and I'd been paid zero dollars.

So I kind of don't like the song. Though it's perfect for this week, so here's a new ukulele version…

And I do still love and support public transportation!

CanadaJim

Chattanooga Choo Choo - Mack Gordon & Harry Warren
I've always liked this song, but have neglected it for too long. Thanks Mitch!

UkeCan1

The Titanic was public transit for rich people ... briefly. But its catastrophic end caused collateral damage for others not on the boat.

I think there's an actual tune to these chords, possibly even written by Les Barker himself, but I only know this as a poem, so I made up my own.

"Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg?" by Les Barker

Scribe

Hello Friends,

I apologize for posting on this forum but thought some of you may be interested in "attending" Brian Fergus's last summer concert of 2025.

INVITATION FROM BRIAN FERGUS OF UkeFOOTE

Come join UkeFoote on Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM PDT. On a journey to a galaxy far away, UkeFoote will play Songs from Outer Space in their final Sunday Summer night show of 2025. Songs of The Rolling Stones, Rush, Pink Floyd and the Carpenters will be featured.

PLEASE NOTE THE EARLIER START TIME OF 6:00 PM PDT!

LOCATION: 6305 SE 46th Avenue, enter on Tolman Avenue

BRING: Folding chair, jacket/sweater (?)

THIS CONCERT WILL BE LIVE-STREAMED ON ZOOM.

ZOOM CALL IN NUMBER: 622 972 7495

PASSCODE: woodstock (no capitals, all lower case letters)

Donations are appreciated. A poster could not be attached. Zoom call in information is provided above.

Brian and Borfus look forward to seeing you.

Cheers!

Charldene

Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay

MORE BANJO! Here is my take on the Kingston Trio's song of public transit gone wrong. No overdubs this time, just pure Lemon.

MTA

DelGriff

Thanks for hosting, Doc! 🙂

Here’s a song I did a long while back for Season 353, not long after I first picked up a uke. This new version is quite different from that one - lots of extra stuff in there, so much so that when it came to the uke part I struggled a bit to fit it in with everything else. The main backdrop is the GarageBand track list, so you can see all the parts and follow the progression of the song. The green tracks are ones I played via a MIDI keyboard, and the blue tracks are the ones from the microphone input - namely the lead and harmony vocals, and the uke part.

The uke itself is a brand new Natasha Comet Concert Ukulele - as demonstrated by @PavelSeverov in the Everything Else thread - see here. I rarely play anything smaller than a tenor, but I was so impressed by his video and the extremely reasonable price, that I took a punt. And I’m really pleased that I did - it’s fab! Thank you, Pavel!

Last Train To London - ELO cover (SOTU 709)

AlanDP

This is a song about the Ford Model T. And if you really want to know what I learned when I went down the flivver/Model T rabbit hole, another video is below, but it's a long one.

CanadaJim

YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD OLD WAGON - Bessie Smith & Stuart Balcom 1925

joo

Hey Paul thanks for hosting!

Here's me noodling a song to a painting i made. It mentions train and plane.:--)

UkeCan1

Take the 8:15 into the city … or maybe don't….

"Takin' Care of Business" - Bachman-Turner Overdrive

UkeCan1

Saturday quickie

"King of the Road" - Roger Miller

He made this itinerant day-to-day life sound so fun.

CanadaJim

THE STREETS OF BALTIMORE - Tompall Glaser & Harlan Howard

uke4ia

This is "Another Bus Coming", a 2024 song by The Salt Collective. The "band" is a collaboration between three French musicians with an assortment of better-known guest musicians. In this case, Matthews Caws of Nada Surf was the singer, and Mitch Easter of Let's Active (producer of some early R.E.M. albums) also played on it. I found an interview where Caws explained the song's meaning as we're humans, so we make mistakes and botch opportunities, but we can try to do better the next time.

UkeCan1

Two of three possible twofer songs on my longish list of candidates for 709 I'd already done earlier this week - one on day 1, the other only yesterday.

For a nanosecond this struck me as unlucky, till I remembered today was Chapters open mic day - in the middle of an impossibly packed weekend - and that having just recently learned two perfect songs for it was probably the only way I was going to get a workable set together in time. And my third song is one I've done before and know pretty well.

This made for a very successful rocking set, with a wonderful audience / impromptu band singing and playing along! Some great banter from the audience too - this was such a fun day.

Plus I learned about two new open mics starting up that might be perfect for my possibly emerging barbershop quartet!

Hence all 3 songs are "twofers":

"Queen of Hearts" - Juice Newton
"King of the Road" - Roger Miller
"Another One Rides the Bus" - Weird Al Yankovic / parody of "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen

Is that me or Weird Al in the thumbnail? Who can tell? I mean, we are practically the same person, right?

…. AAAAAAAND…. that's the second time today that my "Another Bus" song has directly followed Jim's! 😂

LimousinLil

Hello again, Paul! I meant to do this much earlier in the week, but life got in the way … not least having to choose and buy a new mobile phone. As a complete technophobe, this was a very scary process and I even managed to get the new phone blocked before I'd even used it … oh, dear! Anyway, this song was a favourite of a friend of ours, who we lost a couple of years ago … he was an out and out Scouser!

dr_mitch

Thanks everyone. I'm up to date! Sorry for being a slow host this season. I'm enjoying the songs - time for a few more!

AlanDP

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and my first thought was, "We had a week when we could do train songs, and no one has done Wabash Cannonball!"

CanadaJim

DINAH'S RAILROAD BANJO SONG - Bob Yates

My brother Bob composed a partner song to the traditional song "I've Been Workin' On The Railroad. I got Maggie to help me out by singing the original song while I did Dinah's Railroad Banjo Song. First take! (Maybe we shoulda done a few more, but our grandson was waiting for us to carve some pumpkins.)

Maggie & Mickey with jack-O-Lanterns

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