Sunshine of Your Love by Cream

Overview

Key: D major · Chords used: 4 · Sections: 8

Form: Intro → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Instrumental → Verse → Chorus

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). 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

• D
  I

Verse 1

• D – G – D
  I – IV – I

Chorus 1

• A – C – G (×3)
  V – bVII – IV
• A – D
  V – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chorus 2

• A – C – G (×3)
  V – bVII – IV
• A
  V

Instrumental

• D – G – D
  I – IV – I
• A – C – G (×3)
  V – bVII – IV
• A – D
  V – I

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chorus 3

• A – C – G (×5)
  V – bVII – IV
• A
  V

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
D	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Instrumental
G	IV	In the key	Verse, Chorus, Instrumental
A	V	In the key	Chorus, Instrumental
C	bVII	Borrowed from D minor	Chorus, Instrumental

Harmonic highlights

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

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0114, CC0), via ChoCo.
• Cross-check: 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. Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 93%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.