People Get Ready by The Impressions

Overview

Key: D♭ major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 8

Form: Intro → Verse → Interlude → Verse → Interlude → Verse → Verse → Outro

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by Trevor de Clercq. 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.

Key changes

• Verse 3 moves to D major.

Section by section

Intro

• D♭ – B♭m7 – G♭/A♭ (×2)
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A♭)
• D♭
  I

Verse 1

• D♭ – B♭m7 – G♭/A♭ (×3)
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A♭)
• D♭ – Fm7 – E♭m7 – G♭/A♭ – D♭
  I – iii7 – ii7 – IV (bass A♭) – I

Interlude 1

• D♭ – B♭m7 – G♭/A♭ – D♭
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A♭) – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Interlude 2

• D♭ – B♭m7 – G♭/A♭ – D♭ – D – Bm7 – G/A – D
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A♭) – I – #I – #vi7 – #IV (bass A) – #I

Verse 3

• D – Bm7 – G/A (×3)
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A)
• D – F♯m7 – Em7 – G/A – D
  I – iii7 – ii7 – IV (bass A) – I

Verse 4

Same chords as Verse 3.

Outro

• D – Bm7 – G/A – D
  I – vi7 – IV (bass A) – I

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
D♭	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Interlude
B♭m7	vi7	In the key	Intro, Verse, Interlude
G♭/A♭	IV (bass A♭)	In the key	Intro, Verse, Interlude
Fm7	iii7	In the key	Verse
E♭m7	ii7	In the key	Verse
D	#I	Outside the key (chromatic)	Interlude
Bm7	#vi7	Outside the key (chromatic)	Interlude
G/A	#IV (bass A)	Outside the key (chromatic)	Interlude
D	I (in D major)	Home chord (tonic)	Verse, Outro
Bm7	vi7 (in D major)	In the key	Verse, Outro
G/A	IV (bass A) (in D major)	In the key	Verse, Outro
F♯m7	iii7 (in D major)	In the key	Verse
Em7	ii7 (in D major)	In the key	Verse

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by Trevor de Clercq. Expert by-ear harmonic analysis of the original recording, shown on this page.
• Cross-check: the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by David Temperley. Independent by-ear analysis of the same recording. The two analysts agree on the chord (root and major/minor) for 95% of the song.
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.