# Music by Genre > Rock, Folk Rock, Roots Rock, Rockabilly >  Good rock songs?

## TonyEarth

What are some good rock songs to play and sing on the mandolin? i know losing my religion, dance tonight, and you've got to hide your love away. I'm looking for more so i could get a gig somewhere or have fun and make a fool of myself singing on the street  :Mandosmiley:  :Smile:   Ideas?

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## NotACreativeName

Heart in a Cage is an obvious one. The Chris Thile Cover.

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## Richmack

Into the Wild - Rise (Eddie Vedder)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Js2Ef5Ojg

lesson here

http://www.youtube.com/user/rjtaweel#p/u

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## TonyEarth

Thanks, both cool songs.

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## rico mando

I hate to mention this one but  copperhead road goes over great on the street.lots of people will ask for maggie may by rod stewart.thank you by zeppelin is easy and works well.   have fun

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## wellvis@well.com

Here are a bunch of rock song tabs from this very same site:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...earchterm=rrck
Other songs I'd recommend include "Friend of the Devil" and "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead (David Grisman on mandolin), but really just about any song you can play on guitar could be played on mandolin.

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## mandocrucian

I may as well put in a plug for my *On Fire & Ready!* disc, released way back in 1993. This one hits the spectrum of roots-rock stuff from blues, rockabilly, country rock, Fairport-ish folk-rock, etc.  I consider the thing to be *"acoustic rock"*. Mandolin carries the rhythmic function of guitar on a lot of the tracks  (guitar entirely absent on numerous tracks). _ But_ when there is guitar, it's folks like Richard Thompson, or Martin Simpson, or Erik H.  (other personel include pianist Ann Rabson an vocalist Gaye Adegbalola from Saffire, blue harmonica Phill Wiggins, ex-Trapezoid bassist Ralph Gordon, Peter Eri of the Hungarian band Muzsikas on rhythm viola, and some other players who've never heard of before but who can really play, like the jazz drummer from Puerto Tico who's on most of the tracks.  Yes folks, drumming on almost everything!

Tracks include stuff like: _I'm Ready_ (Muddy Waters),_ Fire_ (Hendrix meets Tull), _Summertime Blues_ (Eddie Cochran), _Honky Tonk Blues_ (Hank Sr. ala Cooder), _Low Down Blues_ (Hank Sr. ala New orleans R&B), _Tyrant's Jig_ and a several other originals (NH, ala Fairport Conv.)

16 tracks, 65 minutes long.

Niles H

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## Rick Schmidlin

Battle of Evermore

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## TonyEarth

Actual chords for mandolin are hard to find, i know one can just use guitar chords read as mandolin chords, but sometimes they sound weird.

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## Steve Ostrander

If you go to chordie.com you can automatically transpose chords to mandolin, as well as change the key. Very handy.

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## TonyEarth

wow, thanks, thats really cool

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## Jim MacDaniel

Here's a somewhat recent take on an old classic:


And here's the original -- although JPJ doesn't get as much camera time in this video:

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## rico mando

Good luck singing those high harmonies . :Grin:  :Chicken:

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## TonyEarth

By the way, is there any way to transpose guitar _tabs_? Because it would be great if i could learn "dust in the wind" by kansas, or other classics that aren't really chords or have a tab intro and later go into chords.

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## JimRichter

Transposing guitar tabs?  Yes, but it means knowing both the mandolin and guitar fretboards inside out, since you will have to really think positions for the mandolin.  Guitar-driven music can be hard to apply to an instrument tuned in 5ths.

To give you an idea about how to work a guitar piece into something mandolin ready (without making it bluegrass or altering the melody or feel drastically since we're not talking about any of the Pickin' on joke stuff), refer to some of my YouTube videos.

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## Mike Herlihy

> Transposing guitar tabs?  Yes, but it means knowing both the mandolin and guitar fretboards inside out, since you will have to really think positions for the mandolin.  Guitar-driven music can be hard to apply to an instrument tuned in 5ths.
> 
> To give you an idea about how to work a guitar piece into something mandolin ready (without making it bluegrass or altering the melody or feel drastically since we're not talking about any of the Pickin' on joke stuff), refer to some of my YouTube videos.


Yes, I highly recommend Jim's Youtube videos. I've learned three great songs from Jim's videos. Thanks, Jim

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## Alex Orr

There's a few Steve Earle tunes that work well.  Galway Girl is another good one, as is Sometimes She Forgets, though the latter is more-or-less a straight up country tune.  I also vaguely recall doing a cover of Devil's Right Hand on mando one night at a party a few years back.

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## Jim Bevan

There are tons of rock songs that work great on mando (and I've written a few of them out (notation), if people want 'em), but the one that I find gets the fastest and loudest reaction is Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love". It's pretty easy, too, including the solo.

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## AlanN

Every Breath You Take by The Police. Simple, and people know it (the biggest thing about going over on the street/in public).

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## Phillip Tigue

I have a friend who plays baritone uke.  He loves doing (and others eat it up!) "Like a Prayer" by Madonna, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears, and "Faith" by George Michaels...People honestly go nuts...

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## Paul Merlo

I like to play Hotel Yorba by the White Stripes for people.  It's a short, high intensity jangle with a pretty easy G C D G chord progression too.

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## TonyEarth

> Yes, I highly recommend Jim's Youtube videos. I've learned three great songs from Jim's videos. Thanks, Jim


 I went to his youtube page, and he has some amazing songs there. but how did you learn songs mike? did you just look at the chords while he was playing them? i can't really do that, and i dont have an extraordinary ear for chords. help?

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## Marcus CA

How about "Wipeout"?

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## Mike Herlihy

> I went to his youtube page, and he has some amazing songs there. but how did you learn songs mike? did you just look at the chords while he was playing them? i can't really do that, and i dont have an extraordinary ear for chords. help?


sorry for the slow reply. If you go to Jim's website http://www.jimrichter.com/ he has tab in Tabledit format. You can get a FREE reader http://tabledit.com/ here. My approach is to learn one phrase at a time play along to the Tabledit file (you can slow the playback down. Takes some work but is worth.

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## TonyEarth

two problems.. tabledit files do not work when i download them. also, i dont know how to change the setting in table edit from acoustic guitar to mandolin.

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## TonyEarth

well hes got pdf format, so never mind

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## Mandolin Mick

The Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin is all mandolins. Beautiful song and the tab is on this site.

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## jefflester

^^^ That's not Jimmy Page in that photo, BTW.

The Battle of Evermore has guitar in it also, but certainly can be played with just mandolins.

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## Mike Herlihy

> two problems.. tabledit files do not work when i download them. also, i dont know how to change the setting in table edit from acoustic guitar to mandolin.


http://www.jimrichter.com/lessons/voodoochild.pdf

Little confused since Jim's tabs are for mandolin. The link above is for the PDF for Voodoo Child. Try working off of that as a start.

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## Wendell Jeong

> What are some good rock songs to play and sing on the mandolin? i know losing my religion, dance tonight, and you've got to hide your love away. I'm looking for more so i could get a gig somewhere or have fun and make a fool of myself singing on the street   Ideas?


Iris....  I posted this on the forum a while back with the charts.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLMc1yjLBA0

Wendell

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## MrMoto

The dB´s do a very cool cover of Dylan´s "Positively 4th Street" with Peter Holsapple on the mandolin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmvK7oQkyo0

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## Jim MacDaniel

> ^^^ That's not Jimmy Page in that photo, BTW.
> 
> The Battle of Evermore has guitar in it also, but certainly can be played with just mandolins.


A mandolin-only version, sans vocals, by the very same JP impersonator, apparently in the very same photo/video session:

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## Eddie Sheehy

Parisienne Walkways by Gary Moore lends itself superbly to mandolin...

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## Various

I really think anything can be played on Mandolin (along w/ bano, fiddle, etc).  

I regularly play the following:

"Kiss Me Deadly" Lita Ford
"Horror Business" Misfits
"I Tuned into a Martian" Misfits
"Boys From County Hell" Pogues - _Hey it's a rocker!_
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" Cyndi Lauper

I've always wanted to try Hazy Shade of Winter

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## Jim MacDaniel

How about some Jimmy Ryan? (this song is actually entitled "Hardtime")


...or Bonepony

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## Malcolm G.

Rod Stewart's Maggie Mae is one of the best produced recordings ever and features a powerful mando run. This is the song that made me want to learn mandolin. It only took 30+ years to actually happen  :Smile:

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## Lefty3

REM - Losing My Religion
Butch Walker - 3 Kids in Brooklyn and a few other songs on the Sycamore Meadows album

Iron & Wine has a good bit of mando and banjo stuff.

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## Matt Bowe

"Manic Depression", "Day In The Life", "Black Hole Sun", "White Rabbit", "Where the Streets Have No Name", and "Locomotive Breath" are on the set list of a guitarist I gig with.

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## zombywoof

We were out the other night and decided to go for one of those now for something completely different moments and ended up playing Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen."     Worked pretty good on the mando but it took the lady on cello a bit to get the hang of it.

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