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A Night To Remember Chords | Shalamar Guitar Lesson

In this guitar lesson, you’ll get the chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a full chord chart, and TAB to guide you as you learn A Night To Remember by Shalamar!

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Chords + Lyrics | A Night To Remember

Intro

| Dm7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 |
| Dm7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 N.C |

Verse 1

Chorus 1

| Dm7 | Am7 |
Get ready, tonight.
| Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 |
Gonna make this a night to remember.
| Dm7 | Am7 |
Get ready, oh, baby, tonight.
| Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 N.C |
Gonna make this a night to remember.

Verse 2

Celebrations in the heart ’cause we’re united.
And there’s nothing in this world to come between me and you.
We’re together, and it keeps me so excited.
To think of what the power of love can do, ooh.
And I’m filled with a love that’s, oh, so tender.

Chorus 2

Get ready (baby), tonight (girl).
I’m gonna make this a night to remember.
Get ready (get ready), tonight.
| Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 |
I’m gonna make this a night to remember.

Chorus 3 (key change, reharmonised)

Chorus 4

| Ebm7 | Bbm7 |
Get ready, (get ready) tonight.
| Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |
Gonna make this a night to remember.

Instrumental

| Ebm7 | Bbm7 | Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |

Chorus 5

Verse 3

Chorus 6 (as chorus 4, no stop)

Get ready (this night you won’t forget), tonight.
Gonna make this a night to remember.
Get ready (‘cause your love I won’t regret), tonight.
| Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |
Gonna make this a night to remember.

Chorus 7 (as chorus 6)

Get ready, baby, tonight, darling.
Gonna make this a night to remember.
Get ready (it won’t be like the past), tonight (I will make it last).
Gonna make this a night to remember.

Exploring the Chord Progressions of A Night To Remember: Key Changes and Subtle Twists

Let’s look at the chords for each section of A Night To Remember; they’ve managed to squeeze the most out of them!

Intro + Chorus

Starting with the intro, which later becomes the chorus, looks like this:

||: Dm7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 :||

We are in the key of Bb here, starting on chord III and then an unexpected Am7, which should have been a m7b5 as it’s chord VII. Next, we have an obvious II – V – I in Cm7–F7–Bbmaj7.

The Am7 is the standout chord. It makes it feel as if we’re in both the key of F, with Dm7 being VI and Am7 being III; as well as in the key of Bb, Dm7 being III and Am7 being a modified VII.

Microscopic changes like this are what give meaning to the saying “familiarity with a twist”.

Verse

Let’s now look at the verse. First, we go between what I can only describe as IV – III in the key of F. Nowhere else do we find a maj7 chord with a min7 a semitone below.

||: Bbmaj7 | Am7 :|| x3

This is followed by Bbmaj7–Bm7b5–C. We must here see the Bbmaj7 as chord IV and C as V, so still in the key of F. The Bm7b5 is just a passing chord; it’s not chord VII.

Finally, we go back to the key of Bb as the chords move like this:

| C11 Cm7 F7 F11 | Bbmaj7 |

That’s II – V – I in the key of Bb.

By now, we’ve essentially played all the chords A Night To Remember consists of; the rest is just arrangement tricks!

To get TAB for everything before and after the key change, check out the TAB lesson here: A Night To Remember – Guitar Lesson with TAB.

Key Change and Modal Interchange

Start with a key change chorus that looks like this:

That Bmaj7 is a reharmonised Ebm7 which helps with the key change.

Next, we keep playing the chorus a semitone up, but now with an Ebm7 instead, like this:

||: Ebm7 | Bbm7 | Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 :||

This is followed by an instrumental and breakdown chorus, staying on the same chords.

Verse (new key)

Next, we go back to the verse again, although in the new key, like this:

||: Bmaj7 | Bbm7 :|| x3
| Bmaj7 Cm7b5 | Db | Db |
| Db11 Dbm7 Gb7 Gb11 | Bmaj7 |

Finally, we go back to a chorus and play to fade.

To summarise, A Night To Remember’s chords are both in the keys of F and Bb; we then move up a semitone, and now both sections are in the keys of Gb and B. We could call this bridging of two keys a modal interchange.

Here’s a chord chart.

A Night To Remember Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download

Here’s a PDF and iReal Pro version of my chord chart available for you to download.

A Night To Remember TAB | Course Preview

There’s loads of TAB for this tune as small variations appear through out, all available in the course.

As a preview, here’s the first chorus (don’t confuse this with the intro which has more notes). Notice how the slides are sometimes notated as 16th notes, sometimes as pre-strokes, this is because they are occasionally longer.

There is also a hammer-on in the as variation and most 8th notes are played shirt, indicated with a little dot above the stem.

A Night To Remember chords and TAB, chorus 1.

How Michael Jackson discovered the moonwalk

In 1982, Shalamar released A Night to Remember as a single from their sixth album, Friends. Although disco was supposedly on its way out, the track could best be described as post-disco. It performed reasonably well in the charts, but had it been released a few years earlier, it might have been a massive worldwide hit.

That same year, on Top of the Pops in the U.K.—just a year before Michael Jackson famously performed Billie Jean and debuted the moonwalk—Jeffrey Daniel did the move first (check the video at 2:00 at the top of this page). Daniel actually taught Michael how to moonwalk! While it’s often claimed that he invented it, the move itself dates back to the 1930s.

If you’re in a band looking to get people dancing, A Night to Remember is an excellent, unexpected choice. Its chords make for a great groove and a fun one to play. But here’s the real question: will you moonwalk while playing A Night to Remember’s chords?

A Night To Remember Chords | Related Pages

Want to master this song? Check out the full TAB lesson here: A Night To Remember (Shalamar) Guitar Lesson with TAB.

Alternatively, here are five similar tunes you might enjoy: