Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf

Overview

Key: E major · Chords used: 5 · Sections: 10

Form: Intro → Verse → Bridge → Verse → Bridge → Chorus → Interlude → Verse → Chorus → 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.

Section by section

Intro

• E
  I

Verse 1

• E – E7♯9 (×4)
  I – I7#9

Bridge 1

• G – A – E (×4)
  bIII – IV – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Chorus 1

• E – G – A – G
  I – bIII – IV – bIII
• E – D (×4)
  I – bVII

Interlude

• E
  I

Verse 3

• E – E7♯9 (×4)
  I – I7#9
• G – A – E (×4)
  bIII – IV – I

Chorus 2

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Outro

• E
  I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• G (bIII) is borrowed from the parallel key, E minor.
• D (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, E minor.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0841, CC0), via ChoCo.
• Not verified: another expert transcription (the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by Trevor de Clercq) differs in places from this one, so this page isn't marked verified.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.