Magic Penny – Malvina Reynold’s Song – in Kalimba Tablature

Did you ever hear the theme song from the TV show “Weeds”? Every episode featured a different version of the 1950s social commentary song by Malvina Reynolds, “Little Boxes”.

Less known is her song “Magic Penny”, which has the profound lyric: “Love is something if you give it away…. you end up having more!  It’s just like a Magic Penny – hold it tight and you won’t have any. But lend it, spend it, and you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor!”

And I have to admit, that is a large part of my strategy at Kalimba Magic – to share with the world, to give Kalimba knowledge to everyone, and often to gift downloads or even books to customers who ordered a kalimba (especially those who didn’t use a discount coupon code). The idea: if you are generous, people will pay you back, by speaking highly of Kalimba Magic, or even by buying more kalimbas!

Imagine a world governed by people giving to each other, rather than a world where people are defending their wealth and hoarding their possessions!

And so, I give to you these tabs for the song “Magic Penny”!

Here is the tablature for the 17-Note Kaimba in C, for “Magic Penny”:

And here is a harmony chart for the 17/C kalimba created by Melissa Ghimenti:

Play them together, you and a friend, and it will sound lovely.

Oh, and Anthony Ghimenti’s favorite kalimba, the Hugh Tracey Hotshot-11?  The range of this kalimba is very special, with an entire 8-Note scale in the key of G… plus three lower notes (D=5, E=6, F#=7). Those three lower notes open up the kalimba to a whole bunch of songs… like “Amazing Grace”, which starts on the low 5. And it turns out that “Magic Penny” also uses that low 5 note on the second note of the song:  “Love  IS  something if you give it away…”

Here is the tablature for it:

Love IS something!