With or Without You by U2

Overview

Key: D major · Chords used: 4 · Sections: 10

Form: Intro → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Bridge → Chorus → Chorus → Interlude → Solo

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). 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 – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×2)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Verse 1

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×4)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Chorus 1

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Verse 2

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×2)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Chorus 2

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×3)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Bridge

• D – Gmaj9 – D – Gmaj9 – D – Gmaj9 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×3)
  I – IVmaj9 – I – IVmaj9 – I – IVmaj9 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Chorus 3

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×4)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Chorus 4

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×2)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9

Interlude

• D
  I

Solo

• D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (×5)
  I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9
• D – A7sus4 – Bm7
  I – V7sus4 – vi7

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
D	I	Home chord (tonic)	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Interlude, Solo
A7sus4	V7sus4	In the key	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo
Bm7	vi7	In the key	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo
Gmaj9	IVmaj9	In the key	Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo

Harmonic highlights

• The Intro loops D – A7sus4 – Bm7 – Gmaj9 (I – V7sus4 – vi7 – IVmaj9), a rotation of the “axis” progression (I–V–vi–IV family).

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 0681, CC0), 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 83%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.