As Usual by Brenda Lee

Overview

Key: D♭ major · Chords used: 17 · Sections: 5

Form: Intro → Verse → Verse → Verse → Outro

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). 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.

Key changes

• Verse 2 moves to D major.
• Verse 3 moves to E♭ major.

Section by section

Intro

• D♭ – A♭7 (×2)
  I – V7

Verse 1

• D♭ – A♭7 – D♭ – D♭7 – G♭
  I – V7 – I – I7 – IV
• E♭m7 – A♭7 (×2)
  ii7 – V7
• Cdim – D♭ – A7
  vii° – I – #V7

Verse 2

• D – A7 – D – D7 – G
  I – V7 – I – I7 – IV
• Em7 – A7 (×2)
  ii7 – V7
• C♯dim – D – B♭7
  vii° – I – bVI7

Verse 3

• E♭ – B♭7 – E♭ – E♭7 – A♭ – B♭7 – Ddim – E♭
  I – V7 – I – I7 – IV – V7 – vii° – I

Outro

• E♭
  I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• D♭7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to G♭.
• D7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to G.
• E♭7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to A♭.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0288, CC0), via ChoCo.
• 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.