You can learn how to play Brick House chords by The Commodores!
Lionel Richie’s band The Commodores released Brick House in 1977 as a single from their self-titled 5th studio album.
By now, Motown was firmly established in L.A, having left Detroit behind five years earlier.
The creation of the song came during an equipment failure in the studio, which lead the band to be on an unplanned break.
The bass player came up with the first idea, and the guitarist (William King) played the demo for his wife, Shirley Hanna-King who wrote the lyrics by modifying the saying “built like a brick shithouse”
Drummer Clyde Orange sang lead vocals. Where Lionel was during all this remains unclear.
Brick House reached the top 5 in both the U.S and the U.K. and has been listed as one of the 30 best funk songs ever by Billboard.
Brick House chords and lyrics
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :|| x4
Uh! Uh-hu-hu (whistles).
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
Ow, she’s a brick house. She’s mighty-mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out.
She’s a brick house. That lady’s stacked and that’s a fact, ain’t holding nothing back.
Ow, she’s a brick house. Well put together, everybody knows, this is how the story goes.
||: Am Am7 Am Am7 :||
She knows she got everything. That a woman needs to get a man, yeah, yeah.
How can she lose with the stuff she use. Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six oh what a winning hand.
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
‘Cause she’s a brick house. She’s mighty-mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out.
She’s a brick house. Ow, that lady stacked and that’s a fact, ain’t holding nothing back.
Ow, she’s a brick house. Yeah, she’s the one, the only one, built like an amazon.
||: Am Am7 Am Am7 :||
The clothes she wears, her sexy ways. Make a old man wish for younger days, yeah, yeah.
She knows she’s built and knows how to please. Sure enough to knock a strong man to his knees.
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
‘Cause she’s a brick house. Yeah, she’s mighty mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out.
Hey, brick house. That lady’s stacked and that’s a fact, ain’t holding nothing back. Yeah aw.
||: Am N.C :||
Shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down now.
Shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down, down, down.
Shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down now.
Shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it aww!
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
Brick house. Yeah, she’s mighty mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out.
Aww brick house. Yeah, she’s the one, the only one, built like an amazon, yeah.
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now
Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down, shake it, shake it
Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now
Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now, shake it down, shake it down, shake it!
| Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 N.C |
||: Am7 Gmaj7 G#m7b5 | Am7 D C :||
Ow, a brick house.
Brick House chord progression
Brick House chorus chords are described above as Am7 – Gmaj7 – G#m7b5, but the last two chords are essentially the same, just having the bass note moved up a semitone from G to G#. This is followed by Am7 – D – C.
If we ignore the G#m7b5 as a chord and just see it as a chromatic bass line, all Brick House chords are from A Dorian.
The only other section is the verse which is just Am – Am7. Whenever we get a static min7 chord in this kind of style, it’s a pretty safe bet this is Dorian too, it just makes it funkier.
Should you want to practice improvising using the Dorian mode, Brick House makes a great loop to “blow over”, as sax players would say.
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