Chords + Lyrics | A Night To Remember
Intro
| Dm7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 |
| Dm7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 N.C |
Verse 1
| Bbmaj7 | Am7 |
When you love someone, it’s natural, not demanding.
| Bbmaj7 | Am7 |
And that’s one thing I’m proud to say I’ve found in you.
| Bbmaj7 | Am7 |
I’m so glad we reached an understanding.
| Bbmaj7 Bm7b5 | C | C |
Now I know my heart is safe with you, ooh.
| C11 Cm7 F7 F11 | Bbmaj7 |
So now my love to you, baby, I surrender.
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)
| Db Eb | Bmaj7 | Bbm7 |
Make this a night to remember. Get ready, tonight.
| Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |
Gonna make this a night to remember.
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
| Ebm7 | Bbm7 |
This night you won’t forget.
| Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |
Gonna make this a night to remember.
| Ebm7 | Bbm7 |
‘Cause your love I won’t regret.
| Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 N.C |
Gonna make this a night to remember.
Verse 3
| Bmaj7 | Bbm7 |
Let’s make a toast to those who helped make this occasion.
| Bmaj7 | Bbm7 |
They turned their back on love, and that’s what drove you straight to me.
| Bmaj7 | Bbm7 |
Now to you I make a lasting dedication.
| Bmaj7 Cm7b5 | Db | Db |
I’ll show you all that love and life can be, ooh.
| Db11 Dbm7 Gb7 Gb11 | Bmaj7 |
And each day that I live I will deliver.
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.
A Night To Remember Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning A Night To Remember. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Should you want to play along with the original recording instead, you need to tune your guitar sharp to 442Hz. In the backing tracks, I’ve done this job for you by tuning it to 440Hz.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
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, look further down this guitar lesson.
Key Change and Modal Interchange
Start with a key change chorus that looks like this:
| Db Eb | Bmaj7 | Bbm7 | Dbm7 Gb7 | Bmaj7 |
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
Let’s start with the chorus rather than the intro—it’s easier to master this less repetitive section first, then add the variations later.
Chorus + Intro
Here’s the brilliantly picked, heavily compressed chorus part. Play this for twice as long as you think you need to!
It’s based on the D minor blues scale. When we play Cmaj7, we move slightly outside that framework—it can be seen as an added b6 to the same scale or as a switch to thinking in C major pentatonic.
Once you’re comfortable with the chorus, try the intro by spotting the small variations.
That pull-off triplet is wild, there are plenty little extra notes hidden in there.
Chorus 3 introduces a key change and reharmonises the Ebm7 to a Bmaj7. It doesn’t make much difference to what we play—it’s just a semitone higher.
Using what you’ve learned so far, you should be able to play all the choruses, perhaps even in an improvised way.
Verse
Returning to the original key, let’s look at what to play during the verse. There isn’t much guitar on the record, so I created most of this part.
Notice how we keep things sparse. The Bmaj7 and Bm7b5 shapes are essentially the same—the only change is in the bass note, which we ignore anyway.
The verse after the key change could look like this:
Once you’ve absorbed all this TAB, scroll back up to the chord chart and backing track to put it all together.
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: Continue Learning
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