A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 11 · Sections: 9

Form: Intro → Verse → Verse → Bridge → Verse → Solo → Bridge → Verse → Outro

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the Isophonics reference annotations (Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London). 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

Intro

• G7sus4
  I7sus4

Verse 1

• G – C – G – F (×2)
  I – IV – I – bVII
• G – C – D – G – C – G
  I – IV – V – I – IV – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Bridge 1

• Bm – Em – Bm – G – Em – C – D7
  iii – vi – iii – I – vi – IV – V7

Verse 3

• G – C – G – F (×2)
  I – IV – I – bVII
• G – C – D – G – C – G – G/D
  I – IV – V – I – IV – I – I⁶₄

Solo

• G – C – G – F (×2)
  I – IV – I – bVII
• G – C – D – G – C – G
  I – IV – V – I – IV – I

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Verse 4

• G – C – G – F (×2)
  I – IV – I – bVII
• G – C – D – G – C – G – Gsus4/D
  I – IV – V – I – IV – I – Isus4 (bass D)

Outro

• G – C (×3)
  I – IV
• Fadd9
  bVIIadd9

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
G7sus4	I7sus4	Borrowed from G minor	Intro
G	I	Home chord (tonic)	Verse, Bridge, Solo, Outro
C	IV	In the key	Verse, Bridge, Solo, Outro
F	bVII	Borrowed from G minor	Verse, Solo
D	V	In the key	Verse, Solo
Bm	iii	In the key	Bridge
Em	vi	In the key	Bridge
D7	V7	In the key	Bridge
G/D	I⁶₄	Home chord (tonic)	Verse
Gsus4/D	Isus4 (bass D)	Home chord (tonic)	Verse
Fadd9	bVIIadd9	Borrowed from G minor	Outro

Harmonic highlights

• G7sus4 (I7sus4) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• F (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• Fadd9 (bVIIadd9) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the Isophonics reference annotations (Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London). Expert chord and structure annotation of the original recording (CC BY 4.0 via ChoCo).
• Cross-check: the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by Trevor de Clercq. Expert by-ear harmonic analysis of the original recording, shown on this page. Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 92%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.