A Day Without Rain by Enya

Overview

Key: F major · Chords used: 8 · Sections: 10

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the Uspop2002 chord annotations (Music and Audio Research Lab, New York University). This page shows that transcription as-is: the analysis below is generated directly from it by code, not written by AI. Consecutive repeats of a chord are shown once, and the piano voicings are our playable arrangement of each chord symbol, not a note-for-note transcription.

Section by section

Part 1 (0:01)

• F – Am/E – C – F – Am – C
  I – iii⁶₄ – V – I – iii – V

Part 2 (0:16)

• B♭ – F – Am – E♭ – C – F
  IV – I – iii – bVII – V – I

Part 3 (0:31)

• Am – C – B♭ – F – C – F
  iii – V – IV – I – V – I

Part 4 (0:46)

• Am – C – B♭ – F – Am – E♭ – C
  iii – V – IV – I – iii – bVII – V

Part 5 (1:01)

• F – Am – C – B♭ – F – C
  I – iii – V – IV – I – V

Part 6 (1:16)

• F – Dm – Dmadd9 – Am – E♭
  I – vi – viadd9 – iii – bVII

Part 7 (1:31)

• B♭ – Dm – Am – E♭ – C
  IV – vi – iii – bVII – V

Part 8 (1:46)

• F – Am – C – B♭ – F – Am
  I – iii – V – IV – I – iii

Part 9 (2:01)

• E♭ – C – F – Am – C – B♭
  bVII – V – I – iii – V – IV

Part 10 (2:16)

• F – C – F
  I – V – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• E♭ (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the Uspop2002 chord annotations (Music and Audio Research Lab, New York University). Chord annotation of the original recording (A Day Without Rain), time-stamped by researchers; CC BY 4.0 via ChoCo.
• Section names: this annotation doesn't name verses or choruses, so they aren't guessed. Instead, code used the chord timings to find the bars and cut the song into 8-bar parts. Each part is labelled with the time it starts in the annotated recording (A Day Without Rain), and a part with exactly the same chords as an earlier one says so.
• The key was estimated by code from the chords; this annotation doesn't state it.
• Not verified: only one expert transcription of this song is available so far.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.