Lauren Bateman teaches an acoustic-guitar arrangement of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” adapting piano parts into guitar-friendly chords. She lists the chords (G, D, C, Em, Am7, E, and a Bm barre), instructs placing a capo on the 2nd fret, demonstrates a repeated strumming pattern (down, down, down, up), explains measure counts (mostly 4/4 with a 2/4 half-measure before the bridge), walks through verses, bridge, and chorus with lyrics, and performs a slow playthrough for practice.
Questions this video answers
2nd fret.
G, D, C, E minor (Em), A minor 7 (Am7), E major (E), and a B minor (Bm) barre chord (Bm appears once in the bridge).
Down, down, down, up (with variations during playthrough).
A half-measure of D noted as 2/4 (most other measures are 4/4).
July 26, 2025.
Chapters
Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here, and I have an amazing song by REO Speedwagon called Can't Fight this Feeling. It is a fantastic song. I remember this song being on the radio when I was younger. Unfortunately, this song is a piano song, so I'm going to do some things to make it accessible to you to play on the guitar. And the chords we're going to use to make this easier for us to play are a G chord, a D chord, a C chord, an E minor chord, an A minor 7, which is just a C chord without your third finger down. Okay? And then we have an E major chord. And unfortunately, there is one bar chord. It is a B minor bar chord. Okay. If you can do that, awesome. If not, you could always play the top part of a power chord. Okay. Or you could just play the bottom three or four strings of a B minor to make it easier if you know your bar chords go for the full chord.
So to make these chords match up with the recording, we're going to throw a capo on the second fret of the guitar right there. Okay. So just clip your capo on second fret of the guitar, and all of our chords now are going to sound down, up, down, down, down, up. So whole measure on E minor, then C, G, whole measure on D, back.
To G, G to D, then a full measure of E major.
Then a minor 7 to C.
Ending on D.
And you can see there, we actually had an E major chord that snuck in there. I didn't mention that at the. Maybe I did mention it quickly at the beginning, but it gives a really, really cool change to the song because our ear is expecting E minor, but we go to E major. Very, very cool feel there. So if we put the lyrics behind this now. Now that we've gone through the strumming, it'll sound something like this. So we got one, two, ready.
And I can't fight this feeling any longer.
And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow.
We started out a friendship has grown stronger I only wish I had the strength to let it.
Show.
Then there's another verse.
And I tell myself that I can't hold on forever.
I say there is no reason for my fear.
Feel so secure when we're together.
You give my life direction you make everything so clear.
Now, important note on this second verse, we have one half measure of D. So on my notes, you're going to see little 2/4 in parentheses. That's indicating the time signature. All right, so so far, we've had Four beats, but per measure, right? So either we have two chords for two beats each that adds up to four, or we've had one chord for a full measure of four beats. On the very end of the verses, before we jump into the chorus, it is one measure of two beats. All right, so we're just going to play that strumming pattern. Down, down, down, up. We're just going to play that on the M1 extra time. So if I take it from the A minor, you give my life direction. It'll sound like this again. 2, 3, 4.
You give my life direction. You make everything so clear.
One, two. And then it jumps into the bridge. Not the chorus. Sorry, the bridge section. So let's do that one more time. So the A minor. I'm going to count the number of beats. So we'll start with the A minor. 1, 2, 3, 4. We got 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2,.
1, 2, 2, 1, 2.
And then we jump into the bridge, which is where our bar chord comes into. Play that B minor chord. So we're going from C to B minor and then C, G and D splitting a chord or splitting a measure. Then we have C, E minor, D, C. So the B minor only shows up once, which makes this a great song to practice. If you're working on trying to transition into barre chords, this is a great sign of practice because the B minor is not really a focal chord. It's only in there once in that bridge section. So let's take this bridge section starting with C and B minor for full measures. All right, so we got 1, 2, 3, 4, and down, down, down, up, down, down, down, up. B minor.
C, G and D splitting.
Now all full measures. C, E minor.
Then D.
And then C. Which takes us into the chorus, but with the lyrics. Ready? One, two. Here they are.
And even as I wanna I'm keeping you in sight. You're a candle in the window on this cold, dark winter's night. And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might.
Now, finally, we're getting to the chorus. And this is the first real repeatable part of the song. In that our chord progression is going to be G, a minor, 7, C. All right? G, a minor, 7, c, and the G and the A minor are each two beats. And then the C is a full beat. All right, we're going to do that three times in a row. And then we have a full measure of C, a full measure of D, and a full measure of C. So let's try that chorus. We're just Going to do counting the beats. All right, two beats on G, two beats on A minor, seven, four beats on C. Ready? Let's take it from the top. One, two, here we go. One, two, and a three, four, and a one, two, and a three, four, and a one, two, and a three, four, and a one, two, and A. On your own now, ready?
Full measure of D.
Full measure of.
C. Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore.
I've forgotten what I started fighting for.
Time to bring this ship into the shore? To throw away the oars forever.
Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore?
I forgotten what I started fighting for.
And if I have to crawl upon the floor? Come crashing through the door. Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore.
So we had a B minor sneak in there on the end. I didn't look far enough ahead. But fortunately, most of the chorus is just the repetition of those three chords over and over and over again. So what we're going to do now, I'm just going to take this nice and slowly. Be beginning from that intro through the first couple verses and the chorus, just so you can have a little bit of a playthrough of everything. And that covers all the sections of the song. So let's do the full playthrough. We're going to take this from the beginning, okay? From that intro. If you want a finger, you want.
See, I've been playing the guitar for almost 20 years, and I still drop my pick on the floor. So we're going to take it from the intro, okay? If you want to do the finger picking, you can do that. I'm just going to strum all the way through. So let's take it from the top on the G. So we got one, two, here we go.
It started out, this friendship has grown stronger. Only wish I had the strength to let it show.
I tell myself that I can hold on forever?
I said there is no reason for my fear?
Cause it feels so secure when we're together?
You give my life direction? You make everything so clear.
Half measure.
One, two. And even as I wonder? I'm keeping you in sight. You're a candle in the window On a cold, dark winter's night? And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might?
Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore?
I forgotten what I started Fighting for.
Time to bring this ship into the shore and throw away the oars forever.
Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore.
I forgot what I started fighting for.
And if I have to crawl upon the floor Come crashing through your door Baby I can't fight the ceiling anymore.
Now as you can see, when I was getting into the singing and the strumming, my hand started doing whatever it wanted on the rhythm. And if you find that your hand is starting to develop a mind of its own, that's a good thing. Go with it. Go with the flow. And if you're interested and learning how to develop your strumming hand more, go watch this video over here where I'm going to show you how we can take one strumming pattern and turn it into a number of different really cool sounding strumming patterns. Go watch that video right now.
I forgotten what I started fighting for.
It's time to bring this ship into the shore and throw away the oars forever.
Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore.
I forgot what I started fighting for.
And if I have to crawl upon the floor Come crashing through your door Baby I can't fight the ceiling anymore.
Now as you can see, when I was getting into the singing and the strumming, my hand started doing whatever it wanted on the rhythm. And if you find that your hand is starting to develop a mind of its own that.
