I Wanna Dance With Somebody | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: Gb (bass + drums) :|| x6
Ah, yeah, woah!
| Gb | Gbadd9 | Gb | Gbadd9 |
Hey yeah, ha.
| Ebm | Ebmadd4 | B | Ab9 Db Gb | Gb | Gbadd9 Db |
Oh yeah. Ah-ha, yeah, I wanna dance.
Verse 1
| Db | Db | Ebm | Ebm |
Clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade.
| Db | Db | Ebm | Ebm |
Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away.
| B | Db | Gb | B |
I’ve done alright up to now, it’s the light of day that shows me how.
| Abm B | Db | B Bb B Db N.C |
And when the night falls, loneliness calls.
Chorus 1
| Gb | Gb | Gb | Gb |
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
| Ebm | Ebm | B | Abm7 Db |
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
| Gb | Gb | Gb | Gb |
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
| Ebm | Ebm | B | Abm7 Db | Gb | Gbadd9 Gb |
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
Verse 2
I’ve been in love and lost my senses, spinning through the town.
Sooner or later, the fever ends and I wind up feeling down.
I need a man who’ll take a chance on a love that burns hot enough to last.
So when the night falls, my lonely heart calls.
Chorus 2
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat.
| Ebm | Ebm | B | Abm7 Db |
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
Middle 8
| Ebm (Ebm7) | Ebm (Ebm7) | Db | Db Db6 |
(Somebody who, somebody who). Somebody who loves me yeah.
| Ebm (Ebm7) | Ebm (Ebm7) | Db | Db |
(Somebody who, somebody who). To hold me in his arms, Lord.
| Abm | Db | Gb/Bb | B |
I need a man who’ll take a chance, on a love that burns hot enough to last.
| Abm B | Db | B Bb B Db N.C |
So when the night falls, my lonely heart calls.
Chorus 3 (key change)
| Ab | Ab | Ab | Ab |
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
| Fm | Fm | Db | Bbm7 Eb6 |
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
| Ab | Ab | Ab | Ab |
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody.
| Fm | Fm | Db | Bbm7 Eb6 |
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves me.
Breakdown
||: Ab Ab6 | Ab | Ab Ab6 | Ab :||
Oh-oh, whoa! (Dance) come on baby, haha (dance).
Whoa! Yeah (dance), now give me this, haha, whoa oh oh oh (dance).
Chorus 4
Don’t you wanna dance (dance), with me baby? Don’t you wanna dance (dance), with me boy?
Hey, don’t you wanna dance (dance), with me baby? With somebody who loves me.
Don’t you wanna dance, say you wanna dance, don’t you wanna dance (dance)? Don’t you wanna dance, say you wanna dance, don’t you wanna dance (dance)?
Don’t you wanna dance, say you wanna dance, a-ha (dance), with somebody who loves me.
End
| Ab | Ab | Ab | Ab |
Oh oh oh (dance) oh oh oh (dance).
| Fm | Fm | Db | Bbm7 Eb6 | Ab (fade) |
Oh oh oh (dance Hey baby! (Dance).
I Wanna Dance With Somebody Chords: Learn the progressions
Apart from being in the awkward key of Gb and later Ab, I Wanna Dance With Somebody’s chords are really simple. Let’s analyze each section, starting with the intro.
||: Gb (bass + drums) :|| x6
| Gb | Gb | Gb | Gb |
| Ebm | Ebm | B | Ab9 Db Gb | Gb | Gbadd9 |
The bass line when there are only drums uses the 6th interval as well as the root. This may seem like a small detail but when the progression kicks in and we move to chord VI, our brain is already experiencing familiarity, genius!
Once the chord progression starts, we go: I – VI – IV, followed by IIx – V – I, I told you it was simple!
I’ve transcribed many of the little synth stuff and adapted it for the guitar, so much so that you could play this as a trio, here’s a link: I Wanna Dance With Somebody – Guitar Lesson + TAB.
Let’s move on, below are I Wanna Dance With Somebody’s verse chords: V – VI on repeat, IV – V – I – IV, and finally, II – V.
The last chromatic movement is IV – IIIx – IV – V. Again it’s really simple, just the key is unusual and looks like this:
||: Db | Db | Ebm | Ebm :||
| B | Db | Gb | B |
| Abm B | Db | B Bb B Db N.C |
Ensure you can see, hear, and feel the changes as Roman Numerals. If you can’t, translate it to the key of G instead, it will seem so much easier.
The chorus is pretty much the same as the intro. The only difference is a simpler II – V in the bar before the repeat.
The middle 8 is a true master stroke as we flip the verse chords from Db – Ebm7 around, then use pretty much the second half of the verse, like this:
| Ebm (Ebm7) | Ebm (Ebm7) | Db | Db Db6 |
| Ebm | Ebm | Db | Db |
| Abm | Db | Gb/Bb | B |
| Abm B | Db | B Bb B Db N.C |
If you want the entire world to sing along with your tune, you need clever little twists like this.
Think of it as if you’re guiding a plane to land from the ground but a five-year-old is in control of the plane. You have to be super clear in your instructions.
Following this micro change, what can we do to again keep it simple, but still develop I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ chords? Change the key up a tone! Here it is in the key of Ab:
||: Ab | Ab | Ab | Ab |
| Fm | Fm | Db | Bbm7 Eb6 :||
Before we play this again, there’s a breakdown section over a static Ab chord for 8 bars (check the TAB lesson!), and then it’s just another chorus to fade.
The variation is in the vocals because Whitney Houston is the star of the show, not the chords (I know, it’s weird isn’t it…).
Here’s a chord chart which, after having studied the TAB will make complete sense.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
I could have made this chart easier to read by having bigger bars, but then it wouldn’t have fitted on one page. Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Chord Chart PDF.
This chart was created using iRealPro, here’s a link to that file: I Wanna Dance With Somebody iReal Pro.
Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key, try it in G, using a guitar tuned down a semitone, it’ll blow your mind! Using the app, you could also alter the layout of the arrangement, perhaps put it on two pages.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody Chords | Related Pages
I Wanna Dance With Somebody | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn to play I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston using TAB and chord analysis.
| Db | Db | Ebm7 | Ebm7 |
Clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade.
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Best Of My Love
- Celebration
- Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough
- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
- Somebody Else’s Guy
Whitney Houston tunes
Over her twenty-five-year career, Whitney Houston became known as The Voice voted the 2nd best female singer of all time.
Her biggest tunes include I Wanna Dance With Somebody, How Will I Know, Greatest Love Of All, Higher Love, and I Will Always Love You.
Whitney Houston on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about I Wanna Dance With Somebody chords, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
