Octopus's Garden by The Beatles

Overview

Key: E major · Chords used: 11 · Sections: 6

Form: Intro → Verse → Verse → Solo → Verse → Outro

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

Intro

• E – B9 – E – E/B – D – D♯ – E – C♯m – A – B
  I – V9 – I – I⁶₄ – bVII – VII – I – vi – IV – V

Verse 1

• E – E/D♯ – C♯m – C♯m/B – A – B (×2)
  I – I (bass D♯) – vi – vi (bass B) – IV – V
• C♯m – C♯m/B – A – B – E – E/D♯ – C♯m – C♯m/B – A – B – E
  vi – vi (bass B) – IV – V – I – I (bass D♯) – vi – vi (bass B) – IV – V – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Solo

• A – F♯m – D – E (×2)
  IV – ii – bVII – I
• A – B
  IV – V

Verse 3

• E
  I
• C♯m – C♯m/B – A – B – E – E/D♯ – C♯m – C♯m/B – A – B (×2)
  vi – vi (bass B) – IV – V – I – I (bass D♯) – vi – vi (bass B) – IV – V
• C♯m – C♯m/B
  vi – vi (bass B)

Outro

• A – B – C♯m – C♯m/B – A
  IV – V – vi – vi (bass B) – IV
• B – E (×2)
  V – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• D (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, E minor.

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.