Frankie and Johnny by Traditional

Overview

Key: C major · Chords used: 11 · Sections: 2

Form: Blues Chorus → Blues Chorus

Where these chords come from: a lead sheet of this public-domain song, contributed by a musician to the Wikifonia archive and preserved in the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). It describes the song as written, not any particular recording. This page shows that lead sheet 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

Blues Chorus 1

• C – Gaug7 (×3)
  I – V+7
• C – C7 – F – F♯dim – C/G – A7 – D7 – G7 – C – F7 – C – G7
  I – I7 – IV – #iv° – I⁶₄ – VI7 – II7 – V7 – I – IV7 – I – V7

Blues Chorus 2

• Gaug7 – C (×3)
  V+7 – I
• C7 – F – F♯dim – C/G – A7 – D7 – Fm6 – G7 – C – F7 – C
  I7 – IV – #iv° – I⁶₄ – VI7 – II7 – iv6 – V7 – I – IV7 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Gaug7 (V+7) is borrowed from the parallel key, C minor.
• Fm6 (iv6) is borrowed from the parallel key, C minor.
• C7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to F.
• D7 acts as V/V: it resolves to G7.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). Community-contributed lead sheet (chord symbols over the melody) from the Wikifonia archive, MIT licence. Title and songwriter credit as written on the sheet.
• Section names: detected by code from repeated 8-, 12- and 16-bar phrases (letters such as A and B mark different phrases; a phrase that comes back keeps its letter). Lead sheets rarely print section names.
• Not verified: only one lead sheet of this song is available, so it hasn't been cross-checked.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.