Seasons of the Ukulele

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

Season 682 - Second Track! Hidden Track!

bobjking

Hey, Joo.

Thank you for the Season!

Apologies. I've been having a crisis of creative motivation the last few weeks but I've got my arse in gear to bring something for you. I was intrigued by your second song theory and after spending too much time listening to the second songs from some of my favourite records, I reckon there's something to it!

I couldn't decide what to do though so I’ve come up with an original specifically to be the second track on my album that clearly doesn't exist! (I think that's allowed…) I imagine the album would open with an up tempo attention grabber before settling into a slower track 2…

The song is inspired by my walks home from work and the accompanying video is all filmed by me either walking to or from work or (the colour bits) from my dog walk this morning.

Milo (the boy!) helped out on this one with some lovely ivory tickling. Everything else is me - vocals, 8 string, tenor, garageband erhu (I love that thing!)

Anyway, I hope it fits the theme and I hope you enjoy it. I've set aside some time tomorrow morning to catch up with everyone's videos.

joo

TCK You need to write books, Dave! You write beautifully. Makes the reader read on. A delight to read your posts.

joo

bobjking we need to find an erhu for you on ebay. It being a Chinese instrument, are not too hard to find in the second hand places in Singapore. But I have seen some decent quality new ones in a local music shop too. I tried to learn it in college. Took the school's erhu home after the first lesson and tried to play something. Made such a noise that my parents came to my room alarmed. It isn't a friendly instrument. haha. I gave up after 2 attempts. If I come across a nice one on ebay I will let you know. Garageband erhu sounds really good!

Edwin

Hi Joo! This is an interesting theme, and come to think of it I once read that if you're performing especially an audience who doesn't know your material, you should put the best song second in the set too. First one is to get yourself comfortable, people are just sort of getting tuned to what you sound like, then by the time the second one comes along, you're ready and so are they.

Anyway. Here's one of my favourite track 2s, from Tom Waits' debut album Closing Time.

Sometimes I wonder what the target of this song might have been thinking about Tom looking over at her... I reckon there's a reason she left before the last verse…

joo

AlanDP

I enjoyed your Bonus entry Alan.

Nice pajama pants too. hehe.

joo

right! I have caught up now!

Thanks so much for the songs, guys. I really enjoyed listening to everyone's entry and older videos.

We have 2 more days to go, so there's plenty of time to bring some more songs.

I know some of you have mentioned this before -

I try to link this thread/forum on my Seasons entries so if anyone on YT is curious, they can come here and have a look.

Try that, yah? Nice to have more people joining us.

I am going to bed now. It is 3.33AM and I am hoping to catch the open mic.

Not sure if I can wake up in time for that.

If not, see you here tomorrow.

AlanDP

This was the second track from Leon Redbone's 1990 album Sugar. I went a little barbershop on the chorus of this one.

joo

hehe. I showed up at the Open Mic and it was lovely.

Sunday morning here. Not sure if the new theme has been posted.

Gonna check it in a sec.

Still plenty time to record something for this Season.

Keep the songs coming please!

see you later.

joo

here is another quick one from me. Track 2 of Family Tree by Nick Drake.

CanadaJim

joo It was so nice to see you at the open mic Joo. Nice to see Jon make a brief appearance as well. Hope this becomes a regular thing.

CanadaJim

Sweet Sue - Victor Young & Will J. Harris 1928*
*
This was cut two on The Jim Kweskin Jug Band's first LP, Unblushing Brassiness!
This is also "Take 2" since my uke was a bit out of tune for "Take 1".

CanadaJim

FOR FREE - Joni Mitchell

Maggie is trying to sleep across the hall, so I had to keep it pretty quiet, but here goes.
This is the second track on Joni's LADIES OF THE CANYON LP, making it eligible as a twofer, possibly my first although my sliver of memory cannot always be depended on.
I'll send this one out to Joo and Brian.
This is for a submission to the group "SEASONS OF THE UKULELE", a group of ukulele players from Tasmania to Great Britain to Texas to Ontario, and places in between and beyond, who submit songs on a different topic each week. If you are interested you can find out more at: https://seasonistaforum.flarum.cloud/

dr_mitch

Phew - I made it this week. Here's a ukulele interpretation of parts of Watermelon Man, the second track of Herbie Hancock's headhunters.

dr_mitch

And my second song, today and this week. I haven't written many songs, but this is the best of them. I've just recorded this take.

DesertPavement

Hi Joo, thanks for hosting. Here is track 2 from R.E.M.’s album Automatic For the People. I don’t think this is the best track on the album (for my $ it’s Nightswimming), but it’s a pretty good one.

OnlyUkeThatMatters

My favorite band is the Clash. Their very worst album is their 1985 album, Cut the Crap. And the second song on Cut the Crap is "Dirty Punk."

"Dirty Punk" isn't nearly the worst song on Cut the Crap, though. Heck, it's even pretty fun to sing and play on ukulele…

OnlyUkeThatMatters

One of my personal ukulele goals is to eventually record a ukulele version of every Clash song. I've recorded about 100 so far.

This week I was shocked to learn that I've only recorded the second songs from two of their six albums 😮

Like I hadn't ever recorded "English Civil War," the second song on the Clash's second album Give 'Em Enough Rope.

At least not before just now.

OnlyUkeThatMatters

Wait, Ralf, you seriously haven't ever recorded a version of "Remote Control," the second song on the Clash's debut album?

No, not yet.

Wild.

Okay, Ralf, you did it!

OnlyUkeThatMatters

Aw, Ralf, did you run out of energy before recording the second song from the Clash's most-critically-acclaimed album London Calling, "Brand New Cadillac"?

…

Yeah?

Yeah. "Brand New Cadillac" is the trickiest of the Clash's six second-songs-from-their-albums for sure.

Ah, Ralf, at least you practiced it a little so you've got a better shot of getting recording down the road.

Yeah!

DelGriff

joo

joo I know some of you have mentioned this before -

I try to link this thread/forum on my Seasons entries so if anyone on YT is curious, they can come here and have a look.

Try that, yah? Nice to have more people joining us.

Thanks for mentioning this again, Joo. I’d say it’s not only nice but essential to attract new members to the forum. Inevitably, from time to time and for all kinds of reasons (usually time related), people drop out (either temporarily or, sadly, permanently). If there isn’t a flow of new people to keep up the numbers, we will wither and die. 😢

So please everyone spread the word to anybody you feel might be interested in joining in. I’ve noticed that some of the newer Seasonistas from the other place didn’t come with us - if you have their contact details send them an invitation? They may not even be aware of our existence. If you play with a local uke group, print off some invitations with our web address and pass them around? If you go to any uke festivals this year maybe mention us to people you meet there?

And as Joo suggested, and several of us already do, put a link to the forum and a brief description of what we do in the YouTube description of your videos when you post them. Maybe something like this:

Performed and recorded here as an entry for the Seasons Of The Ukulele (SOTU) song challenge. Any ukulele players who wish to take part (all are welcome and it’s free to join in) please visit:

https://seasonistaforum.flarum.cloud

Being away from the much bigger forum we used to be a part of means there isn’t the constant flow of curious new people that saw us there and decided to join in.

Let’s keep this special little corner of the internet alive and thriving!

Thanks all - you’re the best! 🙂

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