All Night Long | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: N.C :||
||: Absus2 Ab | Gbsus2 Gb:||
Da Da, ooooh.
Verse 1
||: Absus2 Ab | Gbsus2 Gb | Bbm | Ab :||
Well, my friends, the time has come, to raise the roof and have some fun.
Throw away the work to be done, let the music play on.
Everybody sing, everybody dance. Lose yourself in wild romance.
We’re going to Party, Karamu, Fiesta, forever. Come on and sing along!
| Absus2 Ab | Gbsus2 Gb | Bbm | Ab | 2/4 Ab |
We’re going to Party, Karamu, Fiesta, forever. Come on and sing along!
Chorus 1
||: Gb Gbsus2 Gb | Gb Gbsus2 Gb | Ab Absus2 Ab | Ab Absus2 Ab :||
All night long (all night), All night (all night).
All night long (all night), All night (all night).
All night long (all night), All night (all night).
All night long! (all night), Ooh, yeah (all night).
Verse 2
||: Abadd9 | Gbadd9 | Bbm | Ab :||
People dancing all in the street, see the rhythm all in their feet
Life is good, wild, and sweet, let the music play on.
Feel it in your heart and feel it in your soul, let the music take control.
| Ab | Gb | Bbm | Ab | 2/4 Ab |
We’re going to Party, Liming, Fiesta, forever. Come on and sing my song!
Chorus 2
All night long (all night), oooh (all night).
All night long (all night), yes (all night).
All night long (all night), yeah (all night).
All night long (all night), ha (all night).
Middle 8
||: 6/4 Ab Absus4 Ab Ab6 Ab Absus4 Ab | 4/4 Gb | Gb :||
Yeah, once you get started you can’t sit down.
Come join the party, it’s a merry-go-round.
Everyone’s dancing their troubles away, hey.
| 6/4 Ab Absus4 Ab Ab6 Ab Absus4 Ab |
Come join our party, see how we play!
Instrumental 1
| 4/4 Gbadd9 | N.C | Gbadd9 | N.C Ab |
Breakdown
| N.C | N.C |
Tam bo li de say de moi ya. Yeah, Jambo, jumbo.
| N.C | N.C |
Way to parti o we goin’. Oh, jambali.
| N.C | N.C Abadd9 Ab Abadd9 Ab |
Tam bo li de say de moi ya. Yeah, Jambo, jumbo.
| Ab11 | Gbmaj7 | Fm7 | Fm7 Bbm7 Ab6 |
Oh, O, O, O, yes. We’re gonna have a party! (Yeah… ugh).
Chorus 3
||: All night long (all night), All night, (all night). :|| x4
All night long (all night). Uh.
Instrumental 2
||: Absus2 Ab | Gbsus2 Gb | Bbm | Ab :||
Verse 3
We’re going to Party, Karamu, Fiesta, forever. Come on and sing along.
We’re going to Party, Karamu, Fiesta, forever. Come on and sing my song.
Chorus 4 (double)
||: All night long (all night), All night, (all night). :|| x4
All night long (all night). Uh.
||: All night (all night), All night, (all night). :|| x4
All night long (all night). Uh.
Everyone you meet (all night). They’re jamming in the street (all night).
All night long (all night). Yeah, I said.
Everyone you meet (all night). They’re jamming in the street (all night).
All night long! (all night). Feel good! Feel good!
End
||: Gb Gbsus2 Gb | Gb Gbsus2 Gb | Ab Absus2 Ab | Ab Absus2 Ab :||
||: (All night) :||
All Night Long Chords: Unlocking the Magic Behind the Progressions
I’ve seen very few guitar players get the All Night Long chords correct. As you can see in the lyrics and chords above, it is packed with sus2 chords, resolving to the major triad.
Later on, these are replaced with add9 and sus4 chords, before we go back to sus2 again for the end section.
What makes All Night Long‘s chords so interesting is that they mainly move between IV and V, a progression I listed as #2 on my top 10 chord progressions list.
Hardly ever do we resolve to I or VI, giving us a feeling of not wanting to stop; some may even say, continue all night long!
Rather than trying to explain all this any further, here’s a chord chart. Listen to the original recording as you follow along and it will make sense.
All Night Long Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
Download my chord chart as a PDF (since people don’t typically change the key for this one), or as an iReal Pro file (perhaps you prefer it on two pages or have a better design in mind).
All Night Long – A modern standard
As one of the ultimate party songs and a must in any professional musician’s repertoire, we find Lionel Richie‘s All Night Long.
Released in 1983, it can be found on Lionel’s second solo album and his first major hit as a solo artist.
Before this, Lionel had been in the extremely successful Commodores, a band responsible for hits such as Brick House, Three Times A Lady, Boogie Nights, and Easy.
Following the immense success of All Night Long, he released We Are the World, Hello, and Dancing on the Ceiling, firmly establishing himself as one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Released on Berry Gordy’s Motown, All Night Long is perhaps Lionel’s most popular song. When it comes to cover bands, it certainly is the one that has stuck after all these years.
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