Cliff's pontifications and "little known facts"-- the song includes a diminished chord.

Everyone knew Cliff's name at Cheers

Cliff's theory on how to keep warm in winter.


"Wouldn't you like to get away" has very song-unique chords that need analysis... listen.


Did you hear the 3 chords to "wouldn't you like to get away"? Listen again. I've looked for the correct chords online here but nobody has them. There is a m7 b5 in there somewhere. Here's a piano version. It's not my upload. Listen for the part that matches "wouldn't you like to get away". You can hear the player flub it but it's more correct that the chords given online on various sites.



The history of the song is quite interesting. See the wiki article here. [+]

Here's the sheet music and on the first page, which is free, you can see the chords as they were written by the song writer Gary Portney! [+]

So what are those chords (for "wouldn't you like to get away?") You can see we're in Bb so the chord immediatly predecing the "wouldn't" is Ab which in this key is your bVII. Then "like" is a G7 with a #5. I thought there was a m7 with a b5 so I was wrong. G is vi normally in Bb. Here it's alterned to a regular 7th chord with an augmented 5th. So you have VI7#5. That's a nice alteration of vi that I don't recall seeing anywhere, ever. That's why songwriters are songwriters and it's what made the theme become popular and get awards. It resolves to a ii with a 9 for ii9. That's altered but more common. The surprise is that VI7#5 which is like a "new invention" that even Bach and Beethoven would have found profound. It's as if Portney discovered a new element in chemistry or a new species of animal in zoology. He discovered a new chord in music! All other chords in the song are more common, but still interesting.

This is something that Cliff would have told you about if you had visited Cheers yourself. I'm pretty sure.

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