Help! by The Beatles

Overview

Key: A major · Chords used: 12 · Sections: 7

Form: Intro → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus

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

• Bm – Bm/A – G – G/F♯ – E – A – A7 – A6 – A
  ii – ii (bass A) – bVII – bVII (bass F♯) – V – I – I7 – I6 – I

Verse 1

• A – C♯m – F♯m – D – G – A – C♯m – F♯ – D – G – A
  I – iii – vi – IV – bVII – I – iii – VI – IV – bVII – I

Chorus 1

• Bm – Bm/A – G – G/F♯ – E – A7 – A
  ii – ii (bass A) – bVII – bVII (bass F♯) – V – I7 – I

Verse 2

• A – C♯m – F♯m – D – G (×2)
  I – iii – vi – IV – bVII
• A
  I

Chorus 2

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 2.

Chorus 3

• Bm – Bm/A – G – G/F♯ – E – A7 – F♯m – A6
  ii – ii (bass A) – bVII – bVII (bass F♯) – V – I7 – vi – I6

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
Bm	ii	In the key	Intro, Chorus
Bm/A	ii (bass A)	In the key	Intro, Chorus
G	bVII	Borrowed from A minor	Intro, Verse, Chorus
G/F♯	bVII (bass F♯)	Outside the key (chromatic)	Intro, Chorus
E	V	In the key	Intro, Chorus
A	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Chorus
A7	I7	Outside the key (chromatic)	Intro, Chorus
A6	I6	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Chorus
C♯m	iii	In the key	Verse
F♯m	vi	In the key	Verse, Chorus
D	IV	In the key	Verse
F♯	VI	Outside the key (chromatic)	Verse

Harmonic highlights

• G (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, A minor.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 1244, CC0), via ChoCo.
• Cross-check: 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). Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 81%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.