Playing the ukulele has officially surpassed baseball as the nation's favorite pastime, I recently read in the Wall Street Journal. Yup, I was surprised too. Yet this was confirmed when, with Game 3 of the World Series being played last Friday and the Mets survival chances looking grim, Jen, Ken, John, Tom, Nathan, Arlene, Joe, Liz, Chris, Mike, Bill, Larry and Vin ripped up their expensive tickets to Citifield (excellent seats behind the Mets dugout) because they felt an obligation to the ukulele community to come together in song and play a HALLOWEEN theme. How moving.

1. Ghost Chickens in the Sky, Leroy Troy (Ken)

A parody of a song by the Outlaws and Johnny Cash, this was very funny, with good lyrics. We played well and were off to a solid start.

2. Theme to the Addams Family TV show, Vic Mizzy, 1964 (Vin)

This went so fast I thought we either rushed it or left out some verses, but that's all there was to it. Maybe we should have done it twice. Next time someone should bring in a harpsichord.

3. People Are Strange, Doors, 1967 (Vin)

Here was a song in the proper eerie/offbeat mood. Our timing was off a bit due to Jim Morrison's phrasing. Creative phrasing by an individual singer can sometimes be an impediment to the smooth playing of a group.

4. I Put A Spell On You, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968 (Jen)

I like this version. Chris did the screaming vocals.

5. Time Warp, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 (Joe)

We should have spoken a lot of this. Trying to sing the opening parts made us all out of time. We really only clicked on the chorus, and possibly when singing the directions to the dance.

6. Devil With A Blue Dress, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, 1966 (John)

We were a mess on this good rocker. I question the chords we were playing. There was one long stretch with only a C and C7. It seemed to be calling out for a different chord to break it up. (John, the saboteur, brought in Halloween cupcakes in order to derail all our best efforts at dieting.)

7. Werewolves of London, Warren Zevon, 1978 (John)

Not bad. The phrasing threw us a little. It was more like talking than singing. This was a D C and G, with the exact same strumming pattern throughout, both verse and chorus. If we went over this maybe another two or three times with a little discipline, we'd have a good one. Perhaps we should elect a group disciplinarian and chip in for a (small) whip.

For some reason, we watched a video by a Norwegian group called Ylvis, titled "What Does the Fox Say?" At first it sound like a dull children's song about a cow saying moo and a cat saying meow, until it broke out into a wild dance in the woods, with foxes saying the most unlikely things.

8. Little Red Riding Hood, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, 1966 (John)

These chords weren't great, and they weren't printed throughout the song, so we faltered part-way through. I think we then got a better (but not a perfect) chord sheet and did so-so. This was unfortunate. Sam the Sham was the cat's pajamas in 1966, producing the best wolf song of the year. The kids on our block loved it. All children love to howl. I would give our howling a gentleman's C. Some of us were enthusiastic and some a bit shy. (You know who you are, you shy howlers!)

9. Zombie Zoo, Tom Petty, 1989 (John)

No one but John knew it so we didn't play it, but I'm going to give it a listen, just because it's by the great Tom Petty.

10. Black Magic Woman, Santana, 1970 (John)

We weren't bad on this sensational song. The chords weren't too hard, going from Dm to A7 most of the time, with the moderately troublesome Gm in there. With a bit of practice, we could make this one of our money songs, along with Bad Moon Rising and You're 16. Who would have guessed that a guy from the old Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, wrote this in 1968, about seven years before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined up and propelled them to the highest heights in America.

11. Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969 (John)

And speaking of signature songs, we were excellent (as always) on this one.

12. Friend of the Devil, Grateful Dead, 1970 (Dan)

Not many of us sang this, though it's one of the more popular Dead songs. The playing wasn't bad. Lovely melody.

13. Monster Mash, Bobby Pickett, 1962 (Dan)

There will be a competition among us for the best Boris Karloff impersonation so that next Halloween we nail this. The girl singers did a worthy backup.

14. Psycho Killer, Talking Heads, 1977 (Vin)

I love the idea of playing songs on the ukulele one wouldn't usually think would sound good on a ukulele. For example, I was tempted to suggest the Black Sabbath song War Pigs for this session. It seemed pretty hard (but then Vin showed me it could be done). The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain do Psycho Killer at their shows. Joe says his old outfit in Long Beach did it too. We only played well on the chorus. The verse was lacking something. Maybe we need better chords, or the chords presented more clearly on the page. Chord confusion does nothing at all to aid our playing. It's certainly not the first time we were messed up in this manner.

15. Glow Worm, Mills Brothers, 1952 (Arlene) [paper hand-out]

Nothing scary about this song. It's an ode to the lightning bug, those summer-evening backyard delights. We did only the opening part and will have to print out the rest and try it again, perhaps on INSECT NIGHT.

16. Feelin' Groovy, Harpers Bizarre, 1967 (Arlene) [paper hand-out]

This was another of Arlene's holdovers from last time. She brought in handouts, which made all the difference. Whereas our previous attempt was just awful, this time we were a hundred times better.

17. Devil in Disguise, Elvis, 1963 (Nathan)

I thought I knew this song from start to finish, but found I only knew the opening few lines. We didn't get too far.

18. Purple People Eater, Sheb Wooley, 1958

I don't remember who suggested this, nor why we didn't get far before quitting. As this was about twenty to ten, we fizzled our way to a close of proceedings, yet had an overall jolly (and demonic) evening of song.

For our next session, Liz suggested songs with people's names in them. There are lots of those: Diane, Diana, Marie, Maria, Bernadette, Sherry, Sue, Peggy Sue, Donna, Jeannie (and her new boyfriend) and Mickey, to name a few. But, we'll have to postpone this good suggestion for the time after next. To be timely, to coincide with Armistice Day (or Veterans Day, as the kids like to call it), Chris suggested PATRIOTIC songs. I wonder how many there are. I can only think of a handful. Shall we be solemn and earnest about his topic, or may we take a broad approach? For instance, may we broaden it to include not only American patriotic songs, but patriotic songs from other lands? I'm thinking specifically of O Iceland My Iceland, and the great standard, My Heart Belongs to Bosnia-Herzogovina (a rousing melody but with difficult chords.)

-- Dan.