Lava You Lyrics Ukulele

How to Play Lava on Ukulele

The song Lava by James Ford Kelly (from the Pixar short of the same name) is actually pretty straightforward on ukulele. It sits comfortably in the key of G major, which means you're working with open strings mostly. The chord progression is G - D/F- Em7 - Cadd9 repeated across the verse and chorus. That Fbass note in the D chord is the one thing that trips people up. On guitar it's a bass run, but on uke you just play a regular D chord and let the G string ring underneath. It sounds fine. Not perfect, but passable. Here's the chord chart and lyrics for the main sections. I'll keep it to the parts you'll actually play: Verse:
G | D/F| Em7 | Cadd9
I'm singing just for you
G | D/F| Em7 | C
Nobody else will do

Chorus:
G | D/F| Em7 | Cadd9
And when the sun is gone
G | D/F| Em7 | C
I'll be singing on and on The bridge shifts to C - G - D/F- Em7, which is just the same chords in a different order. It returns to the verse progression after that. If you want the full lyrics, they're available on several lyric sites, but honestly you probably won't need them once you memorize the chord shapes. The song is repetitive by design. The progression loops the entire time.

I learned this one because someone at a campfire wanted it played and I had a uke in my bag. I'd never played it before. I looked at the chords online, figured out the strumming pattern by ear, and played through it. It took about twenty minutes of awkward fingering before it sounded decent. The Em7 to Cadd9 transition is the fiddliest part. Your ring finger has to slide from the high E string to the B string while your middle finger stays anchored. It feels clunky at first. It gets easier after a week of practice. For the strumming, use a simple down-down-up-up-down-up pattern. The original has a gentle swell-and-decay feel, so don't hit the strings too hard. Let the chords ring out between changes. The tempo is roughly 72 BPM, slow enough that you have time to reposition your fingers but fast enough that sloppy transitions sound obvious. One thing nobody tells you about this song on ukulele: the capo trick. If you want to sing it at a comfortable key without stretching into barre chords, put a capo on the 2nd fret and play in the shape of F major. F - D/Fdoesn't exist as a clean shape with a capo there, so you'd use F - D - Dm - Bb instead. It changes the sound slightly but makes the vocal range more accessible. I prefer capo 2 for live playing because I can focus on singing instead of hunting for Fmaj7 shapes.

Another detail that matters more than it should: the melody note on "singing just for you" lands on the B string, open. If you're picking rather than strumming, keep that open B ringing through the chord changes. It creates a continuous vocal line that ties the progression together. Strumming hides it, which is fine for casual playing but noticeable if you're recording. As for where to find complete lyrics with chord charts online, mostukuleletabs.com and ultimate-guitar.com both have user-submitted versions. They vary in accuracy. The one on ultimate-guitar has the D/Fsubstitution marked correctly but sometimes skips the bridge. The one on mostukuleletabs is more complete but sometimes notates the C chord as Cmaj7 when it should be plain Cadd9. Play both and trust your ear. The difference between Cadd9 and Cmaj7 here is whether you fret the B string at the third fret or leave it open. Open sounds closer to the original. The song runs about two and a half minutes at performance tempo. You'll repeat the verse-chorus cycle three or four times depending on how you arrange the ending. The original fades out, so you can just repeat the progression and strum softer each time rather than looking for a special outro chord.

Limitations worth noting: this song works fine on concert or soprano uke in standard GCEA tuning. If you're playing on a baritone in DGBE, the chord shapes sound different because the interval relationships shift. You'd need to rewrite the whole thing or tune up. Not worth the effort for one song. Tenor uke in standard tuning works perfectly.