The Night Before by The Beatles

Overview

Key: D major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 9

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

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the Isophonics reference annotations (Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London). 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 – F – G – A7
  I – bIII – IV – V7

Verse 1

• D – C – G – A (×2)
  I – bVII – IV – V
• Bm – Gm (×2)
  vi – iv
• D – G – D – F – G
  I – IV – I – bIII – IV

Verse 2

• D – C – G – A (×2)
  I – bVII – IV – V
• Bm – Gm (×2)
  vi – iv
• D – G – D
  I – IV – I

Bridge 1

• Am – D – G – Bm – E – A
  v – I – IV – vi – II – V

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Solo

• D – C – G – A (×2)
  I – bVII – IV – V
• Bm – Gm (×2)
  vi – iv
• D – G – D
  I – IV – I

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Verse 4

Same chords as Verse 2.

Outro

• F – D
  bIII – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• F (bIII) is borrowed from the parallel key, D minor.
• C (bVII) is borrowed from the parallel key, D minor.
• Gm (iv) is borrowed from the parallel key, D minor.
• Am (v) is borrowed from the parallel key, D minor.
• E acts as V/V: it resolves to A.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the Isophonics reference annotations (Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London). Expert chord and structure annotation of the original recording (CC BY 4.0 via ChoCo).
• Not verified: only one expert transcription of this song is available so far.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.