Ukulele Tutorial: Neon Trees "Everybody Talks"

I consider myself to be a mainstream, pop-punk listener. I feel that I should have shame in mentioning this, because the whole reason to like punk music is to be counter-cultural, against all authority, etcetera, etcetera. Popular punk is an oxy-moron. It's true.

Spoiler alert, I'm a pop-punk fan. The fact is, I like music that's rockin', but I also like music that follows a formula, has good singers, etc, and today's song definitely fits that mold. 

Neon Trees is a fun band; their songs are great, they have a lot of character and I'm going to be honest, I've got a thing for female drummers. She is fantastic.

Today's song tutorial is "Everybody Talks" by Neon Trees, although everyone probably recognizes this song from "...It started with a whisper!!!" 

Take a look at the tutorial video.



Structure of the song:

Count is 4/4, which means that a bar is four counts (yeah, like that makes sense). I will describe a bar as |----|. So if I say |D---|, that means play D for one bar. Simple. D for two bars is |D---|----|.

Strum pattern: up, down/up, chuck, up, down/up, chuck. Down strums are on the odd count (1 and 3) and up strums are on the even count (2 and 4). If this is too complicated, stick to a shuffle strum: down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

Intro: |D---|D---|D---|----| for 3 bars, then hold for one bar.

Verse: D 2 bars, G 2 bars; repeat three times. A for three bars then hold one bar.
|D---|----|G---|----|
|D---|----|G---|----|
|D---|----|G---|----|
|A---|A---|A---|Hold---|

Chorus:
|D---|----|G---|----|
|A---|G---|D---|----|
|F#m---|----|G---|A---|
|D---|----|


Second verse: Same as first, only two rounds of D and G.
|D---|----|G---|----|
|D---|----|G---|----|
|A---|A---|A---|Hold---|

Chorus

Bridge:
|G---|----|D---|----|
|G---|----|A---|----|

Solo:  Hold D for 8 bars.
|D---|----|----|----|
|D---|----|----|----|

Third verse:
|D---|----|G---|----|
|D---|----|Hold---|

Chorus

Outro: (everybody talks, everybody talks)
|D---|----|G---|----|
|A---|G---|D---|----|

|D---|----|G---|----|
|A---|G---|D---|----|

I'm confident this makes no sense. I'm also confident if you're in my brain, it does. Good luck and hope this helps!

Side note: this follows a very common song formula, not only in the progression, but the entire formula of the song. If you figure out how these chords interact, you'll conquer many, many songs out there.