Life's Railway to Heaven by Charles D. Tillman

Overview

Key: A♭ major · Chords used: 4 · Sections: 12

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

• A♭ – D♭ – A♭ – B♭
  I – IV – I – II

A Section 2

• E♭7 – A♭ – D♭ – A♭ – E♭7
  V7 – I – IV – I – V7

B Section 1

• A♭ – D♭ – A♭ – E♭7 (×2)
  I – IV – I – V7

A Section 3

Same chords as A Section 1.

A Section 4

Same chords as A Section 2.

B Section 2

Same chords as B Section 1.

A Section 5

Same chords as A Section 1.

A Section 6

Same chords as A Section 2.

B Section 3

Same chords as B Section 1.

A Section 7

Same chords as A Section 1.

A Section 8

Same chords as A Section 2.

B Section 4

• A♭ – D♭ – A♭ – E♭7 (×2)
  I – IV – I – V7
• A♭
  I

Chord vocabulary

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.