As a special birthday treat, I’m going to see Tessa Violet in London tomorrow! SO EXCITED!
It seemed only right then, that this week’s video and chords should be my favourite song of hers. Come get you the chords, and see a video that took two whole days to make…featuring the inimitable Moggy Interloper.
Read MoreI write songs sometimes. I’ve written a handful that I’m really proud of, either because of what they say, or how they say it. Here’s one of those songs.
Read MoreYou read me right: Pigeon Street, the kids show from the late 70s/early 80s; the one with the absolutely banging theme tune.
It’s short, quite tricky on ukulele, and really, really fun to play. Come get the guitar/ukulele chords!
Read MoreThere Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) is an awesome song, super fun to sing (when my voice wants to behave) and not as hard to play as you might think.
Come get you some ukulele/guitar simplified chords for this epic track…
Read MoreWho doesn't love a bit of Kate Bush? She's an incredible singer and songwriter, and that kind of genius is magnetic as all get out. She's not an easy artist to cover, because there's simply no way to do her justice. But, you know me, trying anyway because I'd rather make mistakes than not make anything at all.
Come get yourself some simple guitar/ukulele chords for Running Up That Hill.
Read MoreI'm not really the day-counting type. I don't have (or desire) any numbered chips. I won't be following 12 steps, no matter how passionately Russell Brand tells me the AA equivalent of drawing Disney princesses as serial killers (yawn) is the new hotness. If you're waiting for an apology...it's not coming.
Read MoreDang, this is a nice song, and it's from a really nice album, too. Extraordinary Magic is one of those Ben Rector tunes that, when I heard it the first time, I fell in love with it straight away. It's how I feel about my Kind-Eyed-Boy, and yes, I know how lucky that makes me.
Come get you some chords so you can play this gentle, gorgeous, heartfelt love song yourself…
Read MoreSomething soft for this week, hey? Here are the guitar and ukulele chords for a lovely tune by Theo Katzman, a thoroughly-underrated guy who crafts rather beautiful songs.
For the hastily-captured (and sunburnt from a day at the beach) YouTube video of me playing, guess who forgot to turn off her white noise machine? THIS GUY. Hence I had to de-noise the sound a bit, which came out…better than the naked sound, but still eerily like I’m roiling in the belly of an angry submarine.
Read MoreI cried when I first heard this song. When you lose someone, it’s the moments of pure emotional honesty that help chaperone you through grief; this song is so raw in its simplicity and cross-applicable truth that it surfaced all the feelings I was compartmentalising just to get through the day, and I was overcome. It was too much, and I had to turn it off. I couldn’t listen to it at work, ever.
It took me months to build the courage to face up to its measures, and figure out (a semblance of) the chords. I sat in my loft with the rain thrumming on the roof, had a good, solid cry, and said a few more little goodbyes as I excavated the music.
The song is beautiful. There’s literally no way I could do it justice. I tried anyway. Here are some chords.
Read More22 years ago today, I fell for a boy with kind eyes…
Given the occasion, here are the chords for a beautiful song by Hunter Hayes that I worked out a while ago, and which covers everything I’d like to say to my sweet love today. (Plus there’s a badly-lit YouTube video of me singing it, if that’s your jam.)
Read MoreHey, friends. It’s been a while since I put up the chords for anything, so let’s start again with an absolute banger of a choon from an exceptional game called Bayonetta 2.
If you haven’t played the game, you really should, but if playing video games isn’t your sort of thing, the main theme song is also great fun to try out. The chords should be fine for ukulele, guitar, etc, but remember, you have to feel it out, and may need to transpose for your range…
Read MoreIt's funny how actual sentences sometimes play in your mind, as if they're being spoken aloud by a narrator. Usually, my brain hosts a shifting thought salad of feelings, ideas and concepts: neat from the source, undiluted. Thoughts don't naturally take the form of words, but colours, feelings, notions, and knowledge. My raw material needs to be fractioned into something else before it can be understood by any other interface. When I write about the messages from In Here, they've been pre-distilled and fashioned to form proper sentences for export.
I’ve written about it before, but on many, many occasions over the past several months, one sentence keeps appearing in my head, pre-refined and ready to ship:
I'm so glad I don't drink any more.
Read MoreIt's been a while, hasn't it? I've not forgotten you. I just had some enormous life events to live. Buckle up, because this is a good half hour of my brain on the page.
For now, I write this from the seat of a BA flight, with sunshine streaming through the window onto my tray-table. I'm heading back to Germany, the country I've lived in for the past ten years, for what could be the last time...
Read MoreOver the past year and a bit, in an effort to improve my quality of life, I've been re-evaluating what's important – taking an active look-see to test if time and tide have brought me any new wisdom, as they are wont to do.
I've thought a lot about what I truly need for a happy existence, what I want, and what I can do without: seeking out the heart in the chatter, to remind myself of what matters. From my wonky analyses came the idea to go without makeup for a while, and see how it made me feel.
I learned some things about myself in the process, and a fair bit about how some others see me, too...
Read MoreWe spend our lives too young, until suddenly we're too old. Just as a single coin must constitute the tipping point from poor to rich, one breath transmutes the dreams of, "One day I'll..." into, "When did I miss my chance?"
I think I may have taken that breath recently, because somewhere along the way I became old, and I'm not sure how it happened.
On the throwaway side of things, I was brought to muse on such dark matters because I watched some thought-provoking television. On the horrendously real side, I found out that a girl I've known since I was very young is, sadly, terminally ill.
"Aah, you guys are so cute." "How long?!" "...What's your secret?"
People often jokingly despair at us for being so loved up: the curious girl with the resting-bitch-face and the Kind-Eyed-Boy with the amiable demeanour who are still together after 20+ years. Just how does that work?
Remarkably easily, as it happens... Come with me, you'll see what I mean.
Read MoreIt's been a rough start to the year, and I'm just over being ill too. Again. I've written this stiltingly over the past week, in between mega-naps and nose-blowing fits – and it's not been an easy ride to get it into this kind of shape.
But I promised both myself and yourself that I'd stitch together my thoughts about the Advent Calendar, sooner or later. So here they are, in all their snuffly-nosed glory.
Read MoreWhen you stop drinking, you wonder how you'll ever have fun again. What in the world could possibly feel as incredible as the blissful release of glass two? What'll replace the intimacy of friends leaning in to share dreams like stolen kisses? Will you ever laugh again like you did at the memes of those magnesium-bright nights? And just how will you explain your behaviour if you don't have the convenient excuse of “Sorry, I was really drunk...”
What you don't realise is, in the words of the prophet David, you're always crashing in the same car.
And in the words of the prophet Fay, sooner or later it's going to steal you away, so please stop doing this to yourself, you beautiful, lost creature...
Read MoreNobody gives a damn about you. Nobody's interested in your journey. Nobody cares what you're doing.
Especially not if you're on a constant and unwavering quest to change yourself for the better. Especially not if you live by solutions. Or maybe it's just me? Am I drinking somebody else’s pain again? (Spoilers, nah. Dont worry, we keep the lamps lit around here these days, and when shadows are cast on the wall, we turn around to see what's casting them.)
Herein I examine some revelations from the past year about negativity, agency, technicolour disinterest, and doing it all anyway.
Read MoreMy word is my bond. I made a promise – and when I make a promise, I keep it. Always.
I completed my silly, wonderful Advent Calendar endeavour: to publish one Christmas Song per day on YouTube during December, up ‘til Christmas Day, and post the chords for it here. The recordings started off as one take, just me and my ukulele, and grew over time to incorporate multiple layers of backing vocals and harmonies. Some were pretty good, too!
It was an ambitious project, a lot of fun, a big mess, an incredible learning experience, and something I’m tremendously proud of. Come get you the songbook, I did internal links and everything.
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