Standards · 1936
The Way You Look Tonight chords & key
- Key
- F major
- Form
- AAB
- Bars
- 48
- Groove
- Up-tempo swing
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Year
- 1936
“The Way You Look Tonight” is a jazz standard by Jerome Kern from 1936. Most bands play it in F major, up-tempo swing; the tune runs 48 bars in AAB form. Harmonically it contains 14 major ii–V–I cadences, uses 14 different chords and moves between the key centres F major, A♭ major and B♭ major. In this atlas it appears on 15 album tracks.
Chord changes
Showing in: Concert (C) — F major
Changes as commonly played (concert pitch). Your band's version may differ.
Harmonic analysis
Most used chords
- Gm7×12
- C7×12
- Dm7×7
- F6×5
- Fmaj7×4
- F7×4
Key centres reached by ii–V
F major, A♭ major and B♭ major
History
"The Way You Look To-night" is a song from the film Swing Time that was performed by Fred Astaire and composed by Jerome Kern with lyrics written by Dorothy Fields. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1936. Fields remarked, "The first time Jerry played that melody for me I went out and started to cry. The release absolutely killed me. I couldn't stop, it was so beautiful." In the movie, Astaire sang "The Way You Look To-night" to Ginger Rogers while she was washing her hair in an adjacent room. Astaire's recording was a top seller in 1936. Other versions that year were by Guy Lombardo and Teddy Wilson with Billie Holiday. In June 2026, CBS News included the song in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.
Read the full article on Wikipedia ↗ · From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Recorded on these albums
Historic 78 rpm recordings
- The Way You Look Tonight The Keynoters · Kern · Fields · Willie Smith · "Lord Calvert" · Red… · 1946 archive.org ↗
- THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT PAUL SMITH QUARTET · Paul Smith · Tony Rizzi · Norm Seelig · Alvin… · 1950 archive.org ↗
Standards with similar changes
Similarity of the chord progression, independent of key.
| Title | Key |
|---|---|
| Long Ago And Far Away 32% | F major |
| Among My Souvenirs 29% | E♭ major |
| Here's That Rainy Day 29% | G major |
| If I Knew Then (What I Know Now) 27% | E♭ major |
| All At Once You Love Her 26% | F major |
| Jeepers Creepers 26% | B♭ major |
| Why Do I Love You? 25% | A♭ major |
| Fools Rush In 24% | C major |
Frequently asked questions
What key is The Way You Look Tonight in?
The Way You Look Tonight is usually played in F major. For B♭ instruments that is G major, for E♭ instruments D major.
Who wrote The Way You Look Tonight?
The Way You Look Tonight was written by Jerome Kern (1936).
What is the form of The Way You Look Tonight?
The Way You Look Tonight has 3 sections (AAB) with 48 bars in total.
How fast is The Way You Look Tonight played?
The usual groove is Up-tempo swing.
What are the chord changes to The Way You Look Tonight?
The opening bars are Fmaj7 | Dm7 | Gm7 | C7. The full chart above can be transposed to any key.