This is a song from the first They Might Be Giants album.
Season 333 - Three three three
- Thread starter kolibri
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DelGriff
A very boring man!
This is a bit of a landmark for me - up to now I’ve adapted past songs I’ve originally written for keyboards to play on the uke, but this is the first song I’ve actually written on and for the uke. Kept it simple - used only 3 chords to keep our charming host happy, called it Three to make her even happier, and mentioned the number 3 in the lyrics approximately 33 times! (Okay, that last bit is a lie, but I mentioned the number 3 quite a lot - as you’ll find out if you can bear to listen it!) Here goes:
Jazzbanjorex
Well-known member
333-3
Does 38 Special count? It's a three in the tens position.
Does 38 Special count? It's a three in the tens position.
bird's eye view of my ukelele
Well-known member
another homemade 3-chord song
"little dancing guy"
"little dancing guy"
wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
We Three Kings
Children seem to have a habit of taking sacred hymns and turning them
into doggrel.
Children seem to have a habit of taking sacred hymns and turning them
into doggrel.
More They Might Be Giants. Had a little trouble hitting some of the notes in the break, but probably the best I'll do without formal singing lessons...
This was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek song coming off of Randy's epic season, and Jim beat me to it, but I'm posting it anyway. More TMBG's
bird's eye view of my ukelele
Well-known member
question about the blues...
i thought to myself, ooooooooooooooooooooooooh you can play the blues with three chords
HOWEVER... if you embellish a chord a bit, does that start to bump up your chord count?
by which i mean, if i play A and D and E, all the way, that's definitely three chords
but if play A and go to A7 a bit, and then play D and go to D7 a bit, and then play E, does that still count as three chords, or have i bumped it up to five chords?
this question sounded perfectly sensible in my head, but now i've typed it out, i'm thinking, IT'S OBVIOUSLY 5 CHORDS!
i'll leave the question hanging anyway!
i thought to myself, ooooooooooooooooooooooooh you can play the blues with three chords
HOWEVER... if you embellish a chord a bit, does that start to bump up your chord count?
by which i mean, if i play A and D and E, all the way, that's definitely three chords
but if play A and go to A7 a bit, and then play D and go to D7 a bit, and then play E, does that still count as three chords, or have i bumped it up to five chords?
this question sounded perfectly sensible in my head, but now i've typed it out, i'm thinking, IT'S OBVIOUSLY 5 CHORDS!
i'll leave the question hanging anyway!
mythinformed
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You could always sneak along the lines of 'Hey here's a Five chord song which contains Three Major chords'.
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We have a lovely host this week, I'm sure she'll be fine with what you want to do, she's not pedantic in any way, shape or form !
OP
OP
Three Major chords are fine by me. The rules are not so strict this week, let's just make music and have a good time.You could always sneak along the lines of 'Hey here's a Five chord song which contains Three Major chords'.
pabrizzer
Well-known member
A group called 3 Dog Night had a pretty big hit with this Paul Williams tune
Ahoy there.
I took a chance and I opted for a digit-sum... Harry Nilson's song '1941' has a digit sum of of two 3's (Here is my "proof" 1+9+4+1=15 (3x5) and 15 is 1+5=6 == 3+3...
Anyway
I also recorded an Icelandic song with 66 in the title and am adding the subtitles to that now.
Here is Nilson's 1941
I took a chance and I opted for a digit-sum... Harry Nilson's song '1941' has a digit sum of of two 3's (Here is my "proof" 1+9+4+1=15 (3x5) and 15 is 1+5=6 == 3+3...
Anyway
I also recorded an Icelandic song with 66 in the title and am adding the subtitles to that now.
Here is Nilson's 1941
DelGriff
A very boring man!
Starting to get a little tenuous now!
LimousinLil
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Starting to get a little tenuous now!
I think you are becoming a bit of numerical nightmare, Mr. Caztecio!
Starting to get a little tenuous now!
Since people were asking about multiples of 3 and such I thought I needed to find a way to squeeze this song in because it has numbers in the title Maybe I should have stopped at the 1st digit-sum and skipped the next step
Tootler
Well-known member
Ylle has already said you'll be ok varying the chords but if you want to stick strictly to three chords, play them all as dominant 7 chords and you'll get the bluesy sound - eg A7, D7 & E7. I was playing around with Robert Johnson's classic, Crossroad Blues on that basis.
OP
OP
Good evening from rainy and rather cool southern Finland! I've listened to your fine songs and added them to the playlist, so at the moment we have 48 songs (3 x 16) from 27 (3 x 9) Seasonistas. There are band names with "three" and songs with "three", and also 3-chord songs - or entries that tick all those boxes. Anyway, I'm enjoying the beautiful performances and great variety. Thank you all again for bringing these terrific songs to the Season 333!
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