3 Non Blondes — What's Up Cover

Although the excellent 4 Non Blondes song is built on only three chords, its melody, arrangement and superb construction created something truly unforgettable. Sometimes I wonder where compositions this good have gone; fewer gems like this seem to appear nowadays — or at least they pass me by.

It is incredible to write this, but the song is twenty years old this year! I still feel as though it were only a few days ago that I saw and heard it on the “MTV European Top Twenty Video Countdown” . Those were the days... For younger readers: in the early 1990s, when all sorts of new “channels” arrived — Sky, Super and so on — we excitedly waited for 7 p.m. every Saturday because that was when Music TV's Top 20 began. In two hours we could hear all the songs that had already been played fifty-seven million times during the week. If you were clever, you could record them onto cassette and then grumble because the presenter talked over the end of the song... grrr . That is how I recorded this song in '92 and wore the tape out listening to it (not solely because of this one track, of course):

I had wanted to make a tutorial video about it for some time. In the end it did not become a tutorial at all, but a special cover performed by 4 3 Non Blondes:

(The arrangement is really only a semi-serious — or semi-unserious — musical backing track; this song is fiendishly difficult to sing!)

The three chords in the song are A major, B minor and D major. On the original recording, the singer slightly alters the acoustic-guitar chord shapes just before each chord ends, which creates a particularly smooth transition to the next one. Anyone who wants to can practise those variations too. (The 3 Non Blondes cover uses only the basic chords.) I did not make a separate tutorial video; you simply alternate these three chords. The guitar melody is very easy as well — listen carefully and you will work it out quickly.