Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 8

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

• G
  I

Verse 1

• G – C – Csus4 – C – G – A – D – Dsus4 – D – G – C – Csus4 – C – G – D – G
  I – IV – IVsus4 – IV – I – II – V – Vsus4 – V – I – IV – IVsus4 – IV – I – V – I

Chorus 1

• G – D (×2)
  I – V
• G
  I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chorus 2

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Solo

• G – C – Csus4 – C – G – A – D – Dsus4 – D – G – C – Csus4 – C – G – D – G
  I – IV – IVsus4 – IV – I – II – V – Vsus4 – V – I – IV – IVsus4 – IV – I – V – I

Chorus 3

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Chorus 4

• G – D (×2)
  I – V
• G – G/B – G/C – G/C♯ – G/D – G
  I – I⁶ – I (bass C) – I (bass C♯) – I⁶₄ – I

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
G	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo
C	IV	In the key	Verse, Solo
Csus4	IVsus4	Borrowed from G minor	Verse, Solo
A	II	Secondary dominant (V/V)	Verse, Solo
D	V	In the key	Verse, Chorus, Solo
Dsus4	Vsus4	In the key	Verse, Solo
G/B	I⁶	Home chord (tonic)	Chorus
G/C	I (bass C)	Home chord (tonic)	Chorus
G/C♯	I (bass C♯)	Outside the key (chromatic)	Chorus
G/D	I⁶₄	Home chord (tonic)	Chorus

Harmonic highlights

• Csus4 (IVsus4) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• A acts as V/V: it resolves to D.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0229, 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 100%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.