Way Down Yonder in New Orleans by Turner Layton

Overview

Key: F major · Chords used: 27 · 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

• C7 – Gm7 (×2)
  V7 – ii7
• C7 – Fmaj9 – Fmaj7 – F6 – C7/G – F♯dim – C9 – Caug7 – F – F♯dim
  V7 – Imaj9 – Imaj7 – I6 – V⁴₃ – #i° – V9 – V+7 – I – #i°

B Section

• C7 – Gm7 – C7 – Gm9 – C7 – Fmaj9 – Fmaj7 – Cm7 – F7 – Cm7 – F9 – B♭6 – Faug7 – B♭6 – A7 – A♭7
  V7 – ii7 – V7 – ii9 – V7 – Imaj9 – Imaj7 – v7 – I7 – v7 – I9 – IV6 – I+7 – IV6 – III7 – bIII7

C Section

• Dm7/C – G7 – Gm7/C – C7 – Cdim – C7 – F – Dm – F – D♭7
  vi⁴₂ – II7 – ii7 (bass C) – V7 – v° – V7 – I – vi – I – bVI7

D Section

• F♯dim – Gm7 – C7 – F – F♯dim
  #i° – ii7 – V7 – I – #i°
• G – Gdim – Cdim (×2)
  II – ii° – v°
• Gm9 – G♭7 – F6
  ii9 – bII7 – I6

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Caug7 (V+7) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• Cm7 (v7) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• Gdim (ii°) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• F9 acts as V/IV: it resolves to B♭6.

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.