★★★★★(4.65 stars, 31 votes) • • Intro C G Am F C G Am F F
F Cooo-ooo Emooo-ooo Fooo-ooo Cooo-ooo Fooo-ooo E7ooo-ooo Amooo-ooo Fooo-ooo CSomewhere Emover the rainbow, Fway up hCigh FAnd the Cdreams that you dream of Gonce in a lulAmlaby F Oh Csomewhere Emover the rainbow,
Fblue birds Cfly FAnd the Cdreams that you dream of, Gdreams really do comAme truFe SomeCday I'll wish upon a star And the Cbrightness of dFay, AmI like the E7dark GWake up where the clouds are far Ambehind Fme Where Ctrouble melts like lemon drops GHigh
above the chimney tops that's Amwhere you'll Ffind me Oh Csomewhere Emover the rainbow,F blue birds Cfly
FAnd the Cdreams that you dare to, oh Gwhy oh why can'Amt I? F
Well I see Ctrees of Emgreen and Fred roses Ctoo
F I'll watch them Cbloom for E7me and Amyou
SomeCday I'll wish upon a star
And I Fthink to myself Gwhat a wonderful AmworldF
Well I see Cskies of Emblue and I see Fclouds of Cwhite
And the Fbrightness of dCay, E7I like the Amdark
And I Fthink to myself wGhat a wonderful wCorld F C
The Gcolors of the rainbow Cso pretty in the sky
Are Galso on the faces of Cpeople passing by
I see Ffriends shaking Chands, Fsaying "how do Cyou do?"
And IF think to myself wGhat a wonderful wAmorld F
F They're really Csaying, Dm7I - I love youG
I hear Cbabies Emcry and I Fwatch them Cgrow
Are Calso on the faces of Gpeople passing by
F They'll learn much Cmore E7than we'll Amknow
And IF think to myself wGhat a wonderful wAmorld F
CSomeday I'll wish upon a star
GWake up where the clouds are far Ambehind mFe
Where tCrouble melts like lemon drops
FWake up where the clouds are far Ambehind mGe
GHigh above the chimney tops that's Amwhere you'll Ffind me
Oh Csomewhere Emover the rainbow, Fway up Chigh
FAnd the Cdreams that you dare to, Gwhy, oh why can't AmI? F
Outro
Cooo-ooo Emooo-ooo Fooo-ooo Cooo-ooo
Fooo-ooo E7ooo-ooo Amooo-a-ehF-a-a-a-a-a-a
The chord arrangement shown above is the author's own work as an interpretation of the song, along with related interactive content. This work may only be used for educational purposes.
Songs by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Songs by Other Artists
This song is a medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World."
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Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s beautiful version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is one of the most popular ukulele songs of all time. If you’ve ever read my about page I said I wouldn’t do it on Ukulele Go but here I am showing I’m a man with absolutely no principles. On with the lesson… The song is so beautifully played and sung that pretty
much everyone that owns a ukulele will naturally gravitate towards it at some point. At it’s heart it’s a pretty simple song but it’s worth investing some time on really perfecting the strumming pattern to get an authentic sound.
Just the 290 million views to date for this one, not too bad at all.
Seven chords will see you through the song (co-incidentally the same number as colours in a rainbow) and whilst that is a few to remember they’re really not that difficult and some of you will be very pleased to hear that there are no barre chords in the mix.
Probably the most difficult to deal with are the E minor and the E7. If E minor is causing you problems then you can simply play a G chord and drop your pinkie finger onto the 4th fret of the C string.
Here are the chord boxes for you to get to grips with…
Strumming Pattern
Ok here we go. There are a few ways to interpret the strumming pattern on this one and you can get away with just strumming DUDUDUDU throughout but we’re going to go a little bit beyond that in this lesson.
The pattern I like to play is a slight variation on the good old fashioned D DU UDU and looks something like this…
Notice that the first beat isn’t actually a strum at all though, what I’m doing is plucking the G string with my thumb at the start of each bar. It’s pretty clear to hear this when you listen to Iz play it, and although he’s playing low G, it works just as well on a ukulele strung with a high G. The pattern shown above sounds something like this when you play it…
//ukulelego.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/tduudu.mp3
One thing I will say is that when I listen, certainly at the start I can hear Iz catching the strings straight after the thumb pluck and on the 3rd beat also. That would make it more of a TUDUDUDU pattern but this can sound pretty clunky. Iz really uses dynamics on this pattern and some of his strums are barely audible at all but they do contribute quite a lot.
I’d recommend sticking with the pattern above if you’re just learning this one and eventually progressing to include the other strums further down the line. If you do want to try it with a more consistent pattern it would sound something like…
//ukulelego.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/tudududu.mp3
Whichever way you go with the strumming pattern, it remains the same pretty much throughout. There is a subtle shift away from such a rigid pattern towards the second half of the song but it’s mostly just changes in dynamics rather than a change in the actual pattern. As I always say, very it as much as you feel comfortable. The same pattern played the same way throughout can get a little boring (for you and your listeners).
Song Structure
To get the song structure grab the PDF song sheet that I’ve put together as a reference. It includes all the chord boxes and lyrics.
You’ll generally be playing the strumming pattern above twice per chord. The exception to this is the intro (just before the singing) where you play the strumming pattern only once per chord.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow Songsheet
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