Eight Miles High by The Byrds

Overview

Key: E minor · Chords used: 7 · Sections: 7

Form: Intro → Verse → Transition → Verse → Interlude → 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.

Section by section

Intro

• Em
  i

Verse 1

• Em – F♯m/E – Em7 – D – C – G – D – C (×2)
  i – ii (bass E) – i7 – bVII – bVI – bIII – bVII – bVI

Transition

• Em – F♯m – G – F♯m
  i – ii – bIII – ii

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Interlude

• Em
  i

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Outro

• Em
  i

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
Em	i	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Transition, Interlude, Outro
F♯m/E	ii (bass E)	Borrowed from E major	Verse
Em7	i7	Home chord (tonic)	Verse
D	bVII	In the key	Verse
C	bVI	In the key	Verse
G	bIII	In the key	Verse, Transition
F♯m	ii	Borrowed from E major	Transition

Harmonic highlights

• F♯m/E (ii (bass E)) is borrowed from the parallel key, E major.
• F♯m (ii) is borrowed from the parallel key, E major.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0111, CC0), 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 78%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.