Everybody Dance chords

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Everybody Dance | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

||: Bass intro :|| x16
||: Cm7 Bb11 | C11 | Abmaj7 Am7b13 | Bb11 :||

Chorus 1

||: Cm7 Bb11 | C11 | Abmaj7 Am7b13 | Bb11 :|| x4
||: Everybody dance, do-do-do, clap your hands, clap your hands. :|| x4

Verse 1

||: Eb Bb | Cm7 | Fm7 | Fm7 :||
Music never lets you down, puts a smile on your face, any time, any place.
Dancing helps relieve the pain, soothes your mind, makes you happy again.
Listen to those dancing feet, close your eyes and let go.
But it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing. Bop-shoo-wa, bop-shoo-wa, bop-shoo-wa

Chorus 2

||: Cm7 Bb11 | C11 | Abmaj7 Am7b13 | Bb11 :|| x4
||: Everybody dance, do-do-do, clap your hands, clap your hands. :|| x4

Verse 2

||: Eb Bb | Cm7 | Fm7 | Fm7 :||
Spinning all around the floor, just like Rogers and Astaire, who found love without a care.
Stepping to our favorite tune, the good times always end too soon.
Everybody’s dancing, lift your feet, have some fun.
Come on everybody, get on your feet, clap your hands, everybody’s screaming.

||: Cm7 Bb11 | C11 | Abmaj7 Am7b13 | Bb11 :|| x4
||: Everybody dance, do-do-do, clap your hands, clap your hands. :|| x4

Breakdown

||: Bass instrumental :|| x16

Chorus 3

||: Cm7 Bb11 | C11 | Abmaj7 Am7b13 | Bb11 :|| x4
||: Everybody dance, do-do-do, clap your hands, clap your hands. :|| x4

Everybody Dance’s chords and progressions

In the key of Eb, we start on chord VI – V – VI, although the last VI is an 11 chord. Cm7 – Bb11 – C11.

This is very clever, a C11 does not have a 3rd, so it’s more like a V chord with the VI chords root in the bass. We could easily call this a Bb/C, instead of a C11. We haven’t left the key here.

Next up we got IV – some kind of strange passing chord – V again. Abmaj7 – Am7b13 – Bb11.

The very odd passing chord could probably be named all sorts, I like calling it an Am7b13, it is definitely outside the key of Eb, which means tension!

The verse is a lot simpler as it goes I – V – VI – II. Eb – Bb – Cm7 – Fm7. Very common diatonic chords although they are in a slightly unusual order.

This contrast between the big chords of the chorus, with a chromatic passing chord and a very intense bass line, is relieved by the verse’s more simple approach.

This is the secret to Everybody Dance’s chordal success. We basically get tension/release.

Everybody Dance – The first song Nile Rodgers wrote for Chic

As the second single from the debut album, and the first song Nile Rodgers wrote for Chic, Everybody Dance did reach #1, but only on the U.S. Dance charts.

In the U.K., the single managed the top top 10. At this point (1977) they were not a massive band yet.

As the years went by, Chic’s success steadily grew, and the hits have kept coming, not just for Chic but also as a production team behind Madonna, Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie, and as late as 2013, Daft Punk.

Although by now, Nile Rodgers was on his own, with Bernard Edwards only remaining with him in spirit.

The hits that these two men are responsible for are so many it seems untrue once you start listing them, and when they play live these days under the name Nile Rodgers and Chic, they play the entire catalog of hits.

Everybody dance usually opens that set, as a reminder of where it all started but also to hit home what the entire point is, for everybody to dance!