Mary's a Grand Old Name by George M. Cohan

Overview

Key: F major · Chords used: 14 · Sections: 3

Form: A Section → A Section → Chorus

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

• Dm7 – Ddim – Gm7 – C7 (×2)
  vi7 – vi° – ii7 – V7
• F – A7 – Dm7 – G7 – C7
  I – III7 – vi7 – II7 – V7

A Section 2

• Dm7 – Ddim – Gm7 – C7 (×2)
  vi7 – vi° – ii7 – V7
• F – A7 – Dm7 – G7 – C – Cdim
  I – III7 – vi7 – II7 – V – v°

Chorus

• C7 – F – D7 – G7 – C7 – Dm7 – F – E7 – C – G7 – C7 – Caug – F – D7 – G7 – C7 – Dm7 – F – A7 – D7 – D – D7 – Gm – G7 – C7
  V7 – I – VI7 – II7 – V7 – vi7 – I – VII7 – V – II7 – V7 – V+ – I – VI7 – II7 – V7 – vi7 – I – III7 – VI7 – VI – VI7 – ii – II7 – V7

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Caug (V+) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• A7 acts as V/vi: it resolves to Dm7.
• G7 acts as V/V: it resolves to C7.
• D7 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Gm.

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.