6 - Sad and Lonely

In this post: Minor chords; St. James Infirmary

Note: If you are new to the ukulele, I suggest you read the posts in the order in which they are numbered.

Why do sad and lonely songs make us feel good? Maybe it’s because misery loves company or because we’re glad to know we’re not alone in our troubles. Whatever the reason, sad and lonely is the domain of the minor key. What I said last time about I-IV-V7 chords in the major scales applies to minor scales as well. A minor scale differs from the major (the scale we normally think of) in the placement of the half steps. The major scale places a half step between the third and fourth note in the scale and between the seventh and eight notes. The minor scale places the half steps between the second and third and the fifth and sixth notes.

With that in mind, here are some groups of minor chords with V7s thrown in. These chord groups are fun to play and practice on a regular basis. They’re grouped in the way you will likely find them in songs, and they almost sound like songs in themselves. As a matter of fact, the first group Dm, Gm, A7 and back to Dm are used in St. James Infirmary, a well known traditional American sad song. The chords are placed in brackets at the point where they begin.







St. James Infirmary (from Song Fest, ed. Dick and Beth Best)

[Dm] I went down to the [A7] St. James [Dm] Infirmary;
To see my [Gm] baby [Dm] there,
She was lyin’ on a [A7] long white [Dm] table,
So sweet, so [A7] cool, so [Dm] fair.

Went up to see the doctor,
“She’s very low,” he said;
Went back to see my baby;
Good God! She’s lyin’ there dead.

I went down to old Joe’s barroom,
On the corner by the square;
They were servin’ the drinks as usual,
And the usual crowd was there.

On my left stood old Joe McKennedy,
And his eyes were bloodshot red;
He turned to the crowd around him,
These are the words he said:

Let her go, let her go, God bless her;
Wherever she may be;
She may search this wide world over
An’ never find a better man than me.

Oh, when I die, please bury me
In my high-top Stetson hat;
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So my friends’ll know I died standin’ pat.

Get six gamblers to carry my coffin,
Six chorus girls to sing me a song,
Put a twenty-piece jazz band on my tail gate
To raise Hell as we go along.

Now that’s the end of my story;
Let’s have another round of booze;
And if anyone should ask you, just tell them
I’ve got the St. James Infirmary blues.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her;
Wherever she may be;
She may search this wide world over
An’ never find a better man than me.

There are, of course, other versions of this classic.

One thing I’d like to suggest is a way to pick/strum this song. Try using a One-Uh Two rhythm in which the One is a dotted eighth, the Uh is a sixteenth and the Two is quarter note. Play it by picking the One with your thumb on the fourth or third string, the Uh with an upward flick of the first two strings with your index finger, and the Two with a downward stroke across all strings with you index finger. Play slowly and deliberately. As a variation, you can treat the Two with the same rhythm as the One-Uh by using an upward pick of the first string with your index finger for the Uh.

I plan to talk more about strumming and picking in the future, so I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.

Later,
-- Al

Correction

The chord chart above incorrectly shows the Bbm chord as a B7. Here is the correct configuration for both chords: