Van Morrison – Wild Night Guitar Tab Guide

Most online tabs for Wild Night are wrong on the bridge chord progression. You will see endless posts listing G major when it is G minor. I have lost track of how many times I have corrected beginners at open mics because they could not get the voice leading to land right. The song sits in D major and uses a fairly standard 12-bar-ish turnaround feel mixed with 8-bar phrases. The main riff is played open position and relies on the D5 power chord shape at the 5th fret for the root movement, but the rhythm part is what matters most. Here is the core voicing set that actually matches the recording. Main Chords You Need: D – xx0232 A7 – x02020 G – 320003 (or x20003 for a simpler version) Gm – 3x1113 (this is the one everyone gets wrong) Em7 – 022033 Am7 – x02013 The verse runs D – A7 – D – A7, two bars each. The chorus shifts to G – D – G – D. Nothing tricky there. The bridge is where people trip up. It goes Gm – Em7 – Am7 – A7, each chord lasting one bar, then back to D for the turnaround. That Gm is the whole point of the song's harmonic tension. If you play G natural instead, it sounds like you are playing a different song entirely.

Van Morrison Wild Night Tab – Full Structure

Intro/Riff: D – A7 – D – A7 (2x) Verse: D – A7 – D – A7 Chorus: G – D – G – D Verse: D – A7 – D – A7 Chorus: G – D – G – D Bridge: Gm – Em7 – Am7 – A7 Chorus: G – D – G – D Outro: D – A7 – D That is the whole arrangement. It repeats. The intro riff is basically the verse chords played as arpeggios rather than strummed. Play the D with a hammer-on from the open D string into the F#, then slide to the A on the third fret of the high E for the A7 move. It gives you the melodic hook without needing any fancy techniques. I used to struggle with the Gm to Em7 transition because my ring finger kept collapsing onto the high E string and muting it. What actually works is lifting all four fingers completely off the neck between those two shapes rather than trying to pivot them. It feels slower at first but it sounds cleaner once you stop worrying about economy of motion. If you want a downloadable tab file, the best source I have found is Musicnotes, though their transcription of the bridge still has G major listed as the default. You can download it there and then manually correct the Gm in the notation editor. For a free option, Songsterr has a user-submitted version that is closer to correct, but the timing is slightly off on the chorus — the strum pattern should be down-down-up-up-down-up, not the straight eighth notes they display. The original recording uses a slapback delay on the guitar, so if you are trying to match tone, a short single-delay return at about 120ms with moderate mix helps a lot. Not required, but it makes the difference between sounding like a cover and sounding like the record. One thing most people miss: the last bar before each chorus lands on the A7 with the B natural in the melody. If you just strum A7 open, it works, but picking out the B on the second string at the second fret gives you that vocal counterpoint Van Morrison sings. It is worth learning as a lead line even if you are only playing rhythm. The song is around 2:45 in length at roughly 120 BPM. It is very repetitive, which makes it one of the easier Van Morrison songs to learn if you already know basic open chords. The Gm is the only real hurdle. Once your hand learns that shape, everything else falls into place quickly.