I recently bought ukulele to add to my arsenal of instruments. I watched “The Jerk” again recently and the ukulele duet between Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters inspired me. For my first ukulele I decided to take a chance on a very unique instrument hand made by a Chinese maker on Ebay. I call it the “Bat-Uke” and I think you can see why.
As I set out to learn the song, I quickly realized it was going to be very challenging for an instrument that was totally unfamiliar to me. I started researching and watching youtube videos and reading ukulele forums. I very quickly found that there was not a single spot-on, correct version out there to my ears.
You can barely see the fretboard at all in the movie to see what Steve’s hands are doing but through my research I found out that it didn’t really matter, as even though Steve Martin is an incredible banjo player, he was miming the ukulele which was actually played by a jazz ukulele player named Lyle Ritz. I started painstakingly listening to every chord over and over for hours, picking out the individual notes in the chords.
EDIT 2/24/2018:
I have now found this video which nails it dead on. End of story! Mysteries unlocked so I’ve deleted the rest of my post and my “best guess” transcription.
Here’s a PDF of the chords: Tonight You Belong To Me
Heath,
That’s fantastic! Those chords sound spot on – far more subtle than the usual typical suggestions for this song. I’ll enjoy annoying – I mean enchanting my family with this for the next decade.
All the best,
Steve
Excellent! Glad someone got some use out of my hard work!