Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses

Overview

Key: D♭ major · Chords used: 8 · Sections: 11

Form: Intro → Verse → Chorus → Interlude → Verse → Chorus → Interlude → Chorus ×2 → Solo → 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

• Solo moves to E♭ minor.

Section by section

Intro

• D♭ – E♭m7
  I – ii7
• G♭ – D♭ – B (×2)
  IV – I – #VI
• G♭ – D♭
  IV – I

Verse 1

• D♭ – B – G♭ (×2)
  I – #VI – IV
• D♭
  I

Chorus 1

• A♭ – B – D♭ (×2)
  V – #VI – I

Interlude 1

• D♭ – B – G♭ – D♭
  I – #VI – IV – I

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chorus 2

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Interlude 2

• D♭ – B – G♭ (×2)
  I – #VI – IV
• D♭
  I

Chorus 3

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Chorus 4

Same chords as Chorus 1.

Solo

• E♭m – B – B♭ – A♭m (×4)
  i – #V – V – iv

Outro

• E♭m – G♭ – A♭m – B – D♭ – G♭ (×10)
  i – bIII – iv – #V – bVII – bIII
• E♭m – G♭ – A♭m (×2)
  i – bIII – iv
• B – D♭ – E♭m
  #V – bVII – i

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
D♭	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Interlude
E♭m7	ii7	In the key	Intro
G♭	IV	In the key	Intro, Verse, Interlude
B	#VI	Borrowed from D♭ minor	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Interlude
A♭	V	In the key	Chorus
E♭m	i (in E♭ minor)	Home chord (tonic)	Solo, Outro
B	#V (in E♭ minor)	In the key	Solo, Outro
B♭	V (in E♭ minor)	In the key	Solo
A♭m	iv (in E♭ minor)	In the key	Solo, Outro
G♭	bIII (in E♭ minor)	In the key	Outro
D♭	bVII (in E♭ minor)	In the key	Outro

Harmonic highlights

• B (#VI) is borrowed from the parallel key, D♭ minor.

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 92% 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.