Seasons of the Ukulele

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

Season 739 - Better Together

jon

beautiful song from 1918 by Turner Layton and Henry Creamer
"after you've gone"

jon

a traditional song i learnt from Ruth Crawford Seeger's gorgeous book
Animal Folk Songs for Children (1950) called "Raccoon and Possum" -
i kept the first 2 verses and added a few of my own…
was a lovely morning yesterday on my bike ride along north west bay

potmo

"Birds of a feather" – Billie Eilish

I'm starting to feel like I am contaminating the playlist, next to so many polished professional performances. My MO has been to practice a song until I get to a point where new takes are just different mistakes. Then the performance starts to deteriorate. That's when I give up.

But a) After putting in so many hours and getting something semi-OK (believe it or not I do have standards. You should see the outtakes) I know that I want to move on, but I also sort of promised myself to force myself to post the videos, so that I wouldnt just keep giving up. I know you are all kind sweet people and you all were happy that the new guy came in with all the energy, who demonstrates that you really can be all levels here . But don't worry about hurting my feelings and let me know... I can always just post to YouTube unless it is something that is fairly easy that I play allright. Anyway, thanks everyone for the encouragement. But since every song gives a pound to charity I guess it is tolearble.

uke4ia

This is "Winding Road" by a Japanese band called MAN WITH A MISSION. It was the theme song for Season 1 of the anime series Golden Kamuy. (Anime shows change their opening and closing theme songs every season, if not more often.) The show is about a hunt for gold in snowy Hokkaido in the early 1900s.

I printed out the chords and lyrics for this for Ylle's Season 701 TV songs theme. It turned out I didn't lower the key enough then. Even after lowering it again this week, I only managed to hit the high notes for one take.

DelGriff

potmo

potmo I'm starting to feel like I am contaminating the playlist, next to so many polished professional performances.

Hi David - it makes me sad that you think this. Your contributions to what we do here are as worthy and as valid and as important as anyone’s. Many of us, myself included, were absolute beginners when we joined the Seasons. The help and the support and the encouragement I found here was overwhelmingly important in helping me progress and keeping me engaged in the learning process. It’s great to see and hear the progress that you’ve made in the relatively short time you’ve been here. Keep doing what you do. The energy and the enthusiasm you bring is very welcome indeed. 🙂

UkeCan1

I thought someone else would have done the other obvious Beatles song by now.

If ever there was a perfect song to do during the cockatoo squawking hour, it's this one. The White Meanies did not disappoint.

"All Together Now"!

LimousinLil

A very belated "hello", Del … and thanks for hosting! The Family went home on Thursday and I am now getting back to normal - sort of! I hope to be able to listen to all the other songs for this week during the course of the day, and I think I'm the next host (???) Anyway, if I am, I'm all ready!

This song was the first I thought of for this week … I love "Gypsy"! It's a rather slow version on account of the fact that some of the chords were unknown to me and I was reading directly from Doctor Uke's chorded version, i.e. I should have spent longer practising. I DID try to sing it with feeling, though! It's also a bit "bass-y" … I don't think I had the microphone in quite the right place. Well, if all that is not enough to put everybody off! Anyway, herewith …

potmo

DelGriff Thank you Del. It isn't that I feel bad, it is just that maybe I should work a little harder on one song before rushing to the next one. So it isn't so much skill level (which is impossible for me not to feel at least a little intimidated) but the fact that i put out songs that I really haven't learned. I just wanted to be sure that people weren't rolling their eyes and thinking to themselves "this guy needs to slow down and practice like we do before we put a song up." Of course, everyone here is way to nice to say anything.

potmo

"Put Me Back Together" – Weezer

Thanks again for the encouragement. This one is awesome 😃

UkeCan1

This was a celebration song when I wrote it, that feels more of a protest song now that the selfsame body alluded to here now seems intent on reversing the celebrated event.

Written the day of the event, for Season 175, boats, hence all the boat song allusions and boat metaphors.

The bridge qualifies it for a twofer.

"Same Boat", an original

dr_mitch

Time for my old song, which is from…four weeks ago. To justify its inclusion:

(1) I submitted 10 songs in a few days. Nobody, not even my mother, is going to listen to 10 songs from me in a few days. But I still think it's quite good.

(2) I'm still learning. Anything I've done that's more than a few months old I cringe at.

Anyway, here it is… "Lily and I are together in our dreams"

Ila

Hi, Del. This is a great, wide open theme for a season, and your donation for Alzheimer's is a brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, I did not look at all the entries before recording my own, so I duplicated a song previously posted--and we all know I'm not keen on that. But with apologies to Wendy, who submitted it before me, here is "We Belong" by Pat Benatar.

And here is a previous entry that fits the season:

UkeCan1

This confluence of themes and local current events made this '80s pop hit by Aussie icon John Farnham my must-do Monday twofer.*

In January, in response to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah market massacre, the federal government instituted a new hate speech law. In early March, the Queensland state government topped it, outlawing a particular phrase that has been used in many different ways by all sides of the Israel-Palestine conundrum.

This weekend, protestors here in Brisbane staged a flash mob, dancing to Farnham's "Two Strong Hearts", a very danceable love song that includes, in its much repeated refrain, both "together", and a phrase very close to the banned phrase.

It's entirely possible I'm committing a crime by posting this song. It's all very bizarre.

*Because it is Monday here (though possibly not where you are), and within the twofer period

I forgot I can add a previously recorded vid to up the donation total, so here’s this one from the day I recorded it:

potmo

We're All in This Together

I love how they build up the verse and don't give you the final tonic chord til the last chorus.

OnlyUkeThatMatters

One of my pals, Candice, loves Kesha!

And she sent me three Kesha songs with together in the lyrics, including "The Potato Song (Cuz I Want To)," which uses together in a different sense than most songs…

I used to think my Gucci bad meant my shit was together!

MsBean

Hi everyone.

I'm happy to see so many entries this week!

I picked this one for you. Skipping the repeats makes it a very short song. Thanks so much for hosting and donating to charity, Del!

https://playforddances.com/dances-2-3/all-together-one-after-another/

potmo

Xamar25 Ha! I tend to avoid looking at people's submissions during the week. Late Sun/ early Mon my time and I decided to use this song as a twofer which would have even qualified as a Monday twofer as defined previously. I thought it would be a good "song which is now a protest song" but then I decided mmm bit of a stretch. Then I thought, "I'll add an "orange one" to the song (haven't listened yet so I don't know if you did this or something similar) . Anyway, I wound up just giving up. Plate of shrimp!

DelGriff

Season 739 - Better Together is now officially closed.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful music and for being a part of this fabulous little corner of the internet. The Seasons continues to be a very special place for me and, I hope, for all of you too. We really are better together.

I have just a few final vids to watch, comment on and add to the playlist - I’ll do that after work this evening. Then I’ll return later in the week to wrap things up properly. Huge thanks and much love to you all! :-)

CanadaJim

No ukuleles in this video, but I thought that anyone who hasn't seen it might enjoy it. I sure did.

DelGriff

It’s a wrap…

Firstly, thanks to all for your participation this week. This is a very special community of people, united by our love of music, hence this Season’s theme title - ‘Better Together’.

There are 64 wonderful videos on the playlist, contributed by 25 individual Seasonistas - a great effort. As promised, I have just made a donation of £64 to the Alzheimer’s Society (£1 for each entry) - a very worthy cause, and one that’s very close to my heart. (The UK Government’s Gift Aid scheme, whereby tax already paid on money donated to charity is reimbursed to the charity, means that the total donation is bumped up by a further 25% to £80!).

A few special mentions before I finish…

@jon - great to have you back in the fold, matey - and you really made up for lost time with a total of 7 fab songs. For those who don’t know, I think I’m right in saying that Jon was one of the original founding members of the Seasons (over 14 years ago!), and was a huge source of encouragement to me (and I’m sure many others) when I first picked up a uke and jumped into the Seasons nearly 7 years ago.

@UkeCan1 & @potmo - a staggering 9 songs each this week - thank you both for all the energy and enthusiasm you consistently bring to the Seasons!

@Renaissance-Man - great to see you here again too, Cody - your song is a great anthem for the Seasons!

I could go on and on - each and every one of you deserves a special mention, but it’s 1am here and I need to sleep! Thank you all once again - we really are better together! :-)

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