Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair by Stephen Foster

Overview

Key: F major · Chords used: 5 · Sections: 8

Form: A Section → B Section → C Section → B Section → A Section → B Section → C Section → B Section

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

A Section 1

• F – B♭ – F – C – F – B♭ – F – G7
  I – IV – I – V – I – IV – I – II7

B Section 1

• C – F – B♭ – F – C – F – G7 – C – F – C – G7
  V – I – IV – I – V – I – II7 – V – I – V – II7

C Section 1

• C – F – B♭ – F – Dm – G7
  V – I – IV – I – vi – II7

B Section 2

• C – F – B♭ – F (×2)
  V – I – IV – I
• B♭ – F – C
  IV – I – V

A Section 2

Same chords as A Section 1.

B Section 3

Same chords as B Section 1.

C Section 2

Same chords as C Section 1.

B Section 4

• C – F – B♭ – F (×2)
  V – I – IV – I
• B♭ – F – C – F
  IV – I – V – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• G7 acts as V/V: it resolves to C.

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.