While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles

Overview

Key: A minor · Chords used: 15 · Sections: 8

Form: Intro → 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

• Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – D – E
  i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – IV – V

Verse 1

• Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – D – E – Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – C – E
  i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – IV – V – i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – bIII – V

Bridge 1

• A – C♯m – F♯m – C♯m – Bm – E – E/F♯ – E/G♯ – E/A (×2)
  I – iii – vi – iii – ii – V – V (bass F♯) – V⁶ – V (bass A)

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Solo

• Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – D – E – Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – C – E
  i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – IV – V – i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – bIII – V

Bridge 2

Same chords as Bridge 1.

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Outro

• Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – D – E – Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – C – E – Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – D – E – Am – Am/G – Am/F♯ – F – Am – G – C
  i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – IV – V – i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – bIII – V – i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – IV – V – i – i (bass G) – i (bass F♯) – bVI – i – bVII – bIII

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
Am	i	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
Am/G	i (bass G)	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
Am/F♯	i (bass F♯)	Outside the key (chromatic)	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
F	bVI	In the key	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
G	bVII	In the key	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
D	IV	Borrowed from A major	Intro, Verse, Solo, Outro
E	V	In the key	Intro, Verse, Bridge, Solo, Outro
C	bIII	In the key	Verse, Solo, Outro
A	I	Borrowed from A major	Bridge
C♯m	iii	Borrowed from A major	Bridge
F♯m	vi	Borrowed from A major	Bridge
Bm	ii	Borrowed from A major	Bridge
E/F♯	V (bass F♯)	Borrowed from A major	Bridge
E/G♯	V⁶	In the key	Bridge
E/A	V (bass A)	In the key	Bridge

Harmonic highlights

• D (IV) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.
• A (I) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.
• C♯m (iii) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.
• F♯m (vi) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.
• Bm (ii) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.
• E/F♯ (V (bass F♯)) is borrowed from the parallel key, A major.

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).
• Cross-check: 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. Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 88%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.