HyperBob's blog/

The song Elephant town is developing into a meme on youtube. There is a campaign afoot to get every Ukulele player on Ukukele underground to do a cover version of this song. It is quite amazing that regardless of singing ability or playing skills many people are covering this song.

And then again some of the most skillful Uke players in the Ukulele underground are also covering the song. I think it gives a sense of community when from the smallest to the greatest everbody sings the same some, and where if you perform really badly then the better performance you have given

The original song was by a 3 year old girl called Tia and her video has been viewed over 12,000 times. To date there has been elephant town tutorials, blistering blues versions, dream like surreal versions, free jazz versions, techno mix. My Finnish tango version is perhaps the first foreign language version.

Here is a link to get your fill of Elephant town versions

The thing I like about Ukuklele Underground is that rank and file members can run and organise contests. Sometimes the prizes are T-shirts or tuners or something simple but the latest contest is for a gold tone banjolele and it is called

Shake your soul

I have put in a couple of soul classics from the 60's. Bring it on home to me by Sam Cooke that man had a magical voice.

and the Otis redding song Try a little tenderness which was written in 1933 by Woods, Campbell and Connelly. This song has wonderful and mysterious chords and when you hit them they make you smile.

So the grandkids are visiting Finland and Noa become very interested in the Ukulele. So much so that we had to bannish him to the balcony so he could practise chord changes.

He found out that there was another competition on Ukulele Underground called Coffee Coffee Contest and wanted to enter it, and decided that he would write an original song and perform it. There's confidence for you. His sister Elli also became enthusiastic and wanted to be backup singers (plural)

After three days (or according to Elli) four he had his song ready and we recorded it and entered it in the competition. I thought the strum he developed for the song was fantastic, and I thought they both were brilliant at performing their song... but then I would since I am their grandfather.