They Didn't Believe Me by Jerome Kern

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 16 · Sections: 4

Form: A Section → B Section → C Section → D Section

Where these chords come from: a lead sheet of this public-domain song, contributed by a musician to the Wikifonia archive and preserved in the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). It describes the song as written, not any particular recording. This page shows that lead sheet 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

A Section

• Am7 – D7 – G – Bm7♭5 – E7♭9 – Am7 – D7 – G
  ii7 – V7 – I – iiiø7 – VI7b9 – ii7 – V7 – I

B Section

• Em7 – Am7 – D7 – D7/C – Bm7 – Em – Bm – F♯7 – Bm7 – F9
  vi7 – ii7 – V7 – V⁴₂ – iii7 – vi – iii – VII7 – iii7 – bVII9

C Section

• E7 – E7♭9 – Am7 – D7 – G6 – Em7 – Am – D7 – G6 – F9
  VI7 – VI7b9 – ii7 – V7 – I6 – vi7 – ii – V7 – I6 – bVII9

D Section

• E7 – Am – D7 – G – Am7 – Bm7 – E7 – Am7 – D7 – D7♭9 – G
  VI7 – ii – V7 – I – ii7 – iii7 – VI7 – ii7 – V7 – V7b9 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• F9 (bVII9) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• D7♭9 (V7b9) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• E7♭9 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Am7.
• F♯7 acts as V/iii: it resolves to Bm7.
• E7 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Am.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). Community-contributed lead sheet (chord symbols over the melody) from the Wikifonia archive, MIT licence. Title and songwriter credit as written on the sheet.
• Section names: detected by code from repeated 8-, 12- and 16-bar phrases (letters such as A and B mark different phrases; a phrase that comes back keeps its letter). Lead sheets rarely print section names.
• Not verified: only one lead sheet of this song is available, so it hasn't been cross-checked.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.