On the Radio by Donna Summer

Overview

Key: D minor · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 13

Form: A Section → B Section → C Section → B Section → C Section → D Section → E Section → E Section → F Section → G Section → E Section → H Section → I Section

Where these chords come from: a chord chart of this song written by a musician and shared on the iReal Pro forums, archived in the iReal Pro forum charts archived in ChoCo (de Berardinis et al., 2023). It's one musician's reading of the song, not a transcription checked against the recording. This page shows that chart 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

• Dm – F – C – Am – B♭ – Gm – C – A7
  i – bIII – bVII – v – bVI – iv – bVII – V7

B Section 1

• Dm – F – C – A7 – Dm – F – C
  i – bIII – bVII – V7 – i – bIII – bVII

C Section 1

• F – B♭ – Gm – C – A7
  bIII – bVI – iv – bVII – V7

B Section 2

Same chords as B Section 1.

C Section 2

• F – B♭ – Gm – Am – Dm
  bIII – bVI – iv – v – i

D Section

• Dm – G13 – B♭ – C7 (×2)
  i – IV13 – bVI – bVII7
• Dm
  i

E Section 1

• Dm – F – C – Cmaj7 – A7 – Dm
  i – bIII – bVII – bVIImaj7 – V7 – i

E Section 2

• Dm – F – C – C7 – F
  i – bIII – bVII – bVII7 – bIII

F Section

• F – B♭ – Gm – C – B♭
  bIII – bVI – iv – bVII – bVI

G Section

• A7 – Dm – F – C – Dm
  V7 – i – bIII – bVII – i

E Section 3

• Dm – F – C – F – B♭
  i – bIII – bVII – bIII – bVI

H Section

• B♭ – Gm – A7 – Dm – G13
  bVI – iv – V7 – i – IV13

I Section

• B♭ – C7 – Dm – G13 (×2)
  bVI – bVII7 – i – IV13
• Dm – G13 – C – Dm
  i – IV13 – bVII – i

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• G13 acts as V/bVII: it resolves to C.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the iReal Pro forum charts archived in ChoCo (de Berardinis et al., 2023). Community chord chart “ON THE Radio 1” (credited “Donna Summer (Roly).”, style Salsa) from the forum file linked here, CC BY 4.0 via ChoCo. Performer confirmed from the Billboard year-end charts.
• Section names: the chart has no section markings, so sections were detected by code from repeated 8-, 12- and 16-bar phrases (letters such as A and B mark different phrases).
• Chord charts are often written in a key that suits a particular singer or band, so this may not be the key of the original recording.
• The chart's key setting didn't fit its chords (it was probably left at a default), so the key shown here was worked out from the chords.
• About the song: Wikipedia.
• Not verified: only one chart 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.