The sum of my continuum of covers, taken in good humour and with a solid dose of artistic license is an ode to the friends I’ve made over the past 40 years – thank you for being part of it.
The songs were all chosen using two requirements:
- Does it have meaning to me regarding someone or something, and
- Will it fit in a 40 song mash-up?
I learned the guitar part of each song or specific riff that I wanted to stitch together and then concentrated on trying to achieve an acceptable transition between each song so that it could be played as if mixed by a DJ, in a continuum. Some songs had to be in there, others were simply made to fit around them.
I’ve been able to play the guitar since I was young but find that I have to play regularly in order to remember anything worth playing. Out of all the 40s 4 40 challenges, this one was planned to be over the longest time. I started learning and relearning these riffs at the start of 2020 and it’s still not perfect. It has taken a lot of playing to get to this point but I’ve really enjoyed it.
I was initially hoping to demonstrate how, similarly to the ‘Amen Break’ just how many songs revolve around similar chord patterns and whilst this remains true and features a lot in the continuum, I found this approach somewhat limiting in song choices so chose not to use any meaningless ones simply because they fit better.
Some people will appreciate the whole list, others only one or two at best. Think nothing of it if a specific song didn’t make the cut; sorry if I murdered anyone’s favourite tune!
The full list of songs / riffs with credit to the original artist is as follows:
1 Are you with me – Lost Frequencies
2 Shape of my Heart / Lucid Dreams – Sting / Juice Wrld
3 Bond theme tune – Monty Norman
4 Come as you are – Nirvana
5 Dive – Nirvana
6 Day Tripper – The Beatles
7 Cigarettes and Alcohol – Oasis
8 Park life – Blur
9 All Apologies – Nirvana
10 Serve the Servants – Nirvana
11 Married with Children – Oasis
12 Where is my mind? – Pixies
13 Lithium – Nirvana
14 Polly – Nirvana
15 All I have to do is Dream – Everly Brothers
16 About a Girl – Nirvana
17 Zombie – The Cranberries / Dolores O’Riordan
18 Gangster’s Paradise – Coolio
19 Half the World Away – Oasis
20 Crazy little thing called Love – Queen
21 Should I stay or should I go – The Clash
22 For Lovers – Wolfman featuring Pete Doherty
23 Still DRE – Dr DRE
24 Pennyroyal Tea – Nirvana
25 Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People
26 Smells like Team Spirit – Nirvana
27 Foxy Lady – Jimmi Hendrix
28 Shook Ones – Mobb Deep / Claptone
29 Billie Gene – Michael Jackson
30 Smoke on the Water – Black Sabbath
31 Money for Nothing – Dire Straits
32 Surf – Mac Miller
33 Sunshine of your love – Cream
34 Voodoo Chile – Jimmi Hendrix
35 Purple Haze – Jimmi Hendrix
36 For all the Cows – Foo Fighters
37 Welcome to Paradise – Green Day
38 Doctor Doctor – UFO
39 Coronation Street – Eric Spear
40 You Wish – Nightmares on Wax
I used a first run Fender 50th Anniversary JagStang in Sonic Blue that I modified with a Seymour Duncan Lipstick Tube at the neck and a Fender Special Design Humbucker at the bridge, both were switched to run in phase with each other.
The amp is a Marshall SC20H Studio Classic JCM 800 Lead Series powering a Marshall 1 x 12 SC112 Speaker Cabinet. I didn’t use any effects nor did I apply any distortion to the guitar and amplifier’s natural sound.
Having watched the recording back, I’m pretty sure I made at least one mistake on each one of the riffs but at hey, I got to the end! I went outside to record when it was sunny and before too long it was cold and raining – my fingers were freezing and you can see the rain coming down from around 11 minutes 11 seconds!
I am less familiar with the JagStang having been away from for a number of years so remain optimistic that I will improve.
To that end, I will attempt another run of this on the Gibson Les Paul I’ve been playing for the past few years for comparison purposes as time and location allows.
As Mark Twain said “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”.
By the 5th of February 2022, the recording has had 440 views!
I’ll be the first to admit it’s hardly gone viral but had I been paying in front of 440 punters, I think I would have been nervous so this is a great example of how effective YouTube is as a sharing platform.
