When the Saints Go Marching In

I would like to teach you another popular song that practically everyone knows. The origins of When the Saints Go Marching In are lost in the distant mists of time and will probably remain an eternal mystery, which is why official sources also describe it simply as "traditional". The earliest known recording dates from 1923, and many artists were already performing versions of it during the 1920s. Louis Armstrong's 1938 recording made it famous around the world, and it went on to become a jazz standard. Elvis, Bing Crosby and Etta James are among the many artists who loved to perform and sing it.

There is hardly a big band whose repertoire does not include When the Saints, and I suspect there is hardly an instrument it has not been arranged for. Naturally, there are countless ukulele versions too. TheKeskeny Megálló ukulele duowas inspired by the song as well, and we arranged it for two ukuleles. So at Ukulele Meetup II, among other things, we played this great little song for you, and to our enormous delight the whole room was — quite literally — ringing, because everyone joined in either on ukulele or by singing:

The song owes its popularity — and the fact that it is so easy to remember — to its simplicity, catchy melody and pleasant chord progression. We play it in C major, but of course everyone can transpose it to whatever key they prefer. In C major we have an easy job, because even the solo-ukulele arrangement is not terribly complicated, and the accompaniment consists mostly of basic chords. The only possible exception is F minor, which makes things slightly trickier. It appears only for a moment and is not normally counted among the basic chords. Still, it is worth knowing the F minor chord because it turns up from time to time in songs, and an important musical turn in When the Saints depends on it. If you have not encountered F minor before, click here to learn everything you need to know about it .

This post contains three more videos. I hope they will inspire many of you to learn the song. First I would like to show you the solo-ukulele arrangement :

In the next video, I demonstrate this solo-ukulele arrangement slowly and explain how I connect the melody to each chord:

I saved the accompaniment — in other words, the chord playing — for last. When playing the accompaniment, try varying the rhythm. Continuous strumming can be replaced by a slightly more restrained pattern emphasizing beats 2 and 4, or you can simply strum the chord on the first beat of each measure. This is how we can make our playing more varied:

You can see the lyrics and chords by clicking here .

I hope I have inspired many of you to learn When the Saints, and I hope that at future ukulele meetups more and more of us will be able to strum it together!