So, a couple of years ago I was starting to feel a bit more confident about my ability to figure out how to play songs I love on the ukulele so when my sister’s birthday started to roll around I offered to record something for her by request.

She gave me a few options (“Marshall Crenshaw’s “There She Goes Again”, U2’s “Beautiful Day” and Grateful Dead’s “Bird Song”) and I played around with them a bit and decided that my best bet was Bird Song.

But I was defeated. I couldn’t figure out the main lick that goes throughout the song, or what do in the verse, and so on. I kept hacking at it but had to give up.

Now, a few years have passed, my chops keep getting better a tiny amount at a time, and I’m getting more confident in playing and singing live (I had planned to layer up a track for her and was only doing audio at the time), I decided to try to work out Bird Song again and discovered that I was able to break it down and arrange it (somewhat) for the uke!

I’m still working on it, especially putting it across, playing the lick that overlaps the singing a bit, and what to do in the weird solo section, but I did manage to give J her birthday present, just a few years to too late, yesterday, and now I’m sharing two takes more publicly.

I’ll keep working on this one.