I'm Only Sleeping by The Beatles

Overview

Key: E♭ minor · Chords used: 12 · Sections: 10

Form: Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Bridge → Solo → Chorus → Bridge → Verse → Chorus

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the Isophonics reference annotations (Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London). 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

Verse 1

• E♭m – A♭m – G♭ – B – G♭ – B♭7 – E♭m – A♭m
  i – iv – bIII – #V – bIII – V7 – i – iv
• G♭ – B (×2)
  bIII – #V

Chorus 1

• G♭ – A♭m – B♭m – A♭m – Bmaj7
  bIII – iv – v – iv – #Vmaj7

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chorus 2

• G♭ – A♭m – B♭m7 – A♭m – Bmaj7
  bIII – iv – v7 – iv – #Vmaj7

Bridge 1

• E♭m – D♭m – E♭7 – A♭m – E – E♭7 – A♭m – G♭ – B – G♭ – B♭7
  i – bvii – I7 – iv – #I – I7 – iv – bIII – #V – bIII – V7

Solo

• E♭m – A♭m
  i – iv
• G♭ – B (×2)
  bIII – #V

Chorus 3

• G♭ – A♭m – B♭m – A♭m – Bmaj7 – A♭m7
  bIII – iv – v – iv – #Vmaj7 – iv7

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Verse 3

• E♭m – A♭m
  i – iv
• G♭ – B (×2)
  bIII – #V

Chorus 4

• G♭ – A♭m – B♭m – A♭m – Bmaj7 – A♭m7 – E♭m
  bIII – iv – v – iv – #Vmaj7 – iv7 – i

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• E♭7 acts as V/iv: it resolves to A♭m.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: 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).
• Not verified: only one expert transcription of this song is available so far.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.