Seasons of the Ukulele

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

Season 710 -- Royalty

Ila

“If all of the kings had their queens on the throne, we would pop champagne and raise a toast.” –Ava Max

Greetings Seasonistas! If you’ve never participated in the Seasons of the Ukulele before, well, first and foremost, WELCOME. Your level of experience playing the ukulele does not matter to participate here. I’m living proof. (My first time participating was with about a whopping six weeks of experience.) We’re just here to have some fun, and because you’re new here, you may play ANYTHING YOU LIKE for your first submission. You’ll find the people here to be friendly, warm, supportive, and fun.

This week, we’re focusing on royalty. Here are this week’s parameters:

Your song must either:

a) Mention a royal personage like the example above, or

b) Be a song by Queen, or

c) Be a song by Prince, or

d) Be a song by Elvis Presley (The King), or

e) Be a song by Michael Jackson (The King of Pop), or

f) Be a song by Aretha Franklin (The Queen of Soul)

· The video must be newly recorded for this Season. Rob may submit earlier recordings.

· The video must say that it is for SOTU 710 -- Royalty.

· The ukulele must be prominent. Other instruments are welcome but the uke must be front and center. And visible.

· Original songs are always welcome. If you do choose to submit an original song, please post the lyrics so we can all read them whilst you croon.

· Videos must be posted to this thread. But not before midnight tonight, Hawaiian time, in keeping with tradition.

· There is no limit to the number of videos you can submit.

· Please state in your post how the song fits the Season’s theme. I don’t pretend to know the entirety of artist catalogs, so help a girl out here.

Please invite other players to join in; the more the merrier. Most importantly, HAVE FUN.

The playlist link is: (Please let me know if I’ve inadvertently omitted someone from the playlist and I’ll fix it toot-sweet.)

The prize is something small and uke-themed that can be shipped internationally with ease and won’t break the bank to ship around the globe (not to scale!).

ONE LAST THING—To all Seasonistas New and Old—Please come to our free SOTU weekly international open mic sessions via Zoom. Details can be found at https://seasonistaforum.flarum.cloud/d/22-seasonistas-international-open-mic

The open mic sessions are a great way to meet some terrific people from all over the planet, who play all sorts of music. Again, it is a warm, supportive, friendly group of people, and we really do enjoy each other very much. Personally, participating weekly keeps me practicing and has helped me improve immensely. And getting together truly is good for the soul.

I genuinely hope to see you there.

Warmest regards,

Ila

PS: Continue posting about Planes, Trains, and Automobiles while that Season is still going!!!

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?

LimousinLil

Hello, Ila … and thanks for hosting! The woman in this song was a Beauty Queen - so I hope she counts! She was also a woman of high birth, being a Lady. Unfortunately, she let herself down by "going Hollywood"! (The original story of Lady Godiva riding naked through the streets as a protest against her husband's punitive taxes on his tenants dates back to the 13th Century).

dr_mitch

Thanks for hosting. Here's one that was originally a country blues song from 2020 from Marcus King. I've wanted to play this one for a while (and missed 708 which would have also fit), so double thanks for the excuse!

AlanDP

Written by Shel Silverstein and recorded by several different artists. I know Emmylou Harris as well as Dr. Hook did it. But the one I'm most familiar with was by Dave and Sugar, who had a country hit with it back in the 70s and I heard it on the radio a lot when I was a kid. Dave was a guy named Dave Rowland, and Sugar were two women who sang backing vocals, although it wasn't always the same two women. The lineup of Sugar changed through the years, but I think their biggest hits were with the original Sugar. My daughter gave me a small cajon for my birthday, it has a strap so you can hang it from your neck and play standing up. I bought a set of brushes to use with it. So this is the first time I've tried playing it. I prefer to leave percussion up to the percussionists. I tacked a photo of it onto the end of the video so you can see what it looks like.

UkeCan1

Monday twofer: "Impossible" from Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella".

In which Cindy's Fairy Godmother sings about transforming publicly available mice into transport to the prince's royal ball. Which would be Impossible, but one is a Fairy Godmother with a magic wand … and Cinderella (spoiler alert) is destined to be a magical princess.

YorkSteve

Thanks for hosting Ila! "I may be a beggar and you may be the Queen", courtesy of The Fratellis.

Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay

Lots of royalty here. It is an Elvis song which is about a king and mentions a princess.

King of the Whole Wide World

dr_mitch

Here's another - Heroes by David Bowie on my steel string baritone. The star of this video is undeniably my cat, Teddy, rather than me or the instrument.

Relevant lines:

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen

AlanDP

The bass on this one is my computer playing the "acoustic bass" sound with a bass line I wrote with Musescore. I think next time I might try the tuba sound instead. I also wrote the chorus harmony part.

UkeCan1

I've tried this one before and didn't quite get it done. From Suzanne Vega's eponymous debut album, which I played on endless repeat back in the day. She's such a deep thoughtful songwriter, and this song is a prime exemplar.

"The Queen and the Soldier"

Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay

This is one of my favorite Beach Boys songs. Never released as a single, it was on their 1964 album "All Summer Long" and addresses Elvis as "King". Do You Remember?

dr_mitch

Time for a cheeky song from me -it's Queen with Fat Bottomed Girls.

Edwin

Hi Ila! Thanks for hosting! And thanks for the excuse to dig out one of my Dylan favourites, "Queen Jane Approximately", which, following Bob's instruction in the title, I have done approximately. It features my early efforts at trying to play a UBass. It's a Flight Mini Bass Lite and it's lots of fun, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. Also it's very pretty. I'll post a photo some other time. Meanwhile, the song…

I overdubbed a couple of other things, because why not, including a secondary baritone uke, a harmonica and a simple organ part. The uke part was way too fiddly for me to try to get out the harmonica rack this time.

johnpoole

Thanks for hosting Ila. Here's a King squared. An Elvis song about King Creole. One of his better movies too. Written by rock and roll giants Lieber and Stoller.

AlanDP

Published in 1937, recorded by Elvis in 1961.

CanadaJim

HER MAJESTY - Paul McCartney

I last did this about 8 months ago, so I hope it's OK to repeat it.
Seems to me that you did it sometime as well Ila. Hope you don't mind.

Guess who I met in the drugstore on Seniors' Discount Day.

But another man beside you sits in a tuxedo wearing spats,
I love you Queen Elizabeth, 'cause you wear groovy hats.
On listening to my first attempt at this, I thought it kinda sucked so I did it over.

Joko

Here's some Queen…

johnpoole

This Sixto Rodriguez song has a queen of hearts in it's magic lyrics. " Cause"

redpaul1

I can't find the link to the playlist (I just get a link to a song by Ava Max) - apologies in advance to @OnlyUkeThatMatters :-D

'Rock The Casbah' by the only band that matters