Yes, it has been asked! Can you play a sad song on the ukulele? Short answer: YES! As Elton John famously penned, “Turn ’em on, turn ’em on, Turn on those sad songs, When all hope is gone … Sad songs say so much.”

To leave the sad songs out of our repertoire would mean leaving out a much relieving and therapeutic aspect of playing and performing music … The ability to turn our frustrations into art … to sing the blues.

Eddie Vedder said of the ukulele, ” “It is a happy sound, and by using it to process some emotions that were less than joyful, it somehow balanced it out to where it didn’t sound like suicide music.”

Ukuleles have been helping people sing sad songs since the first wave of ukulele popularity in 1915 …

So if you feel like singing about the end of the world, get it out of your system …

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.