The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel

Overview

Key: B major · Chords used: 7 · Sections: 11

Form: Intro → Verse → Verse → Bridge → Verse → Solo → Bridge → Verse → Verse → Bridge → Verse

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.

Section by section

Intro

• B9 – B
  I9 – I

Verse 1

• B – G♯m – F♯ – F♯7 – B – G♯m – F♯ – E – B – F♯ – B
  I – vi – V – V7 – I – vi – V – IV – I – V – I

Verse 2

• B – G♯m – F♯ – F♯7 – B – G♯m
  I – vi – V – V7 – I – vi
• F♯ – E – B (×2)
  V – IV – I

Bridge 1

• G♯m – D♯m – G♯m – F♯ – B
  vi – iii – vi – V – I

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Solo

• B – G♯m – F♯ – F♯7 – B – G♯m
  I – vi – V – V7 – I – vi
• F♯ – E – B (×2)
  V – IV – I

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Verse 4

• B – G♯m – F♯ – F♯7 – B – D♯m – G♯m – F♯ – B
  I – vi – V – V7 – I – iii – vi – V – I

Verse 5

Same chords as Verse 2.

Bridge 3

• G♯m – D♯m – G♯m – F♯ (×8)
  vi – iii – vi – V

Verse 6

Same chords as Verse 2.

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
B9	I9	Outside the key (chromatic)	Intro
B	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Bridge, Solo
G♯m	vi	In the key	Verse, Bridge, Solo
F♯	V	In the key	Verse, Bridge, Solo
F♯7	V7	In the key	Verse, Solo
E	IV	In the key	Verse, Solo
D♯m	iii	In the key	Bridge, 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 100% of the song.
• Cross-check: the Uspop2002 chord annotations (Music and Audio Research Lab, New York University). Chord annotation of the original recording (Collected Works - Disc 3), time-stamped by researchers; CC BY 4.0 via ChoCo. Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 100%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.