The Beatles · from Abbey Road (1969) · side-two medley
A study in a secondary-dominant lift inside a lullaby.
A tender C-major verse swells into a chorus that opens on a bright, non-diatonic E major, the dominant of the relative minor, before settling home.
This is a gentle lullaby in the Abbey Road medley, in a home key of C major.
The verse is soft and rocking, using warm, close chords.
Then the chorus jumps up onto a bright chord that does not belong to the home key, which makes it feel like a sudden lift.
That borrowed bright chord is called a secondary dominant, a chord that points at a different chord instead of home.
After the lift, the music melts back down to home, then rolls into the next song.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The song is in C major and relies on its relative minor, A minor, giving the verse a soft, bittersweet cast.
That gentle major-and-relative-minor pull is the lullaby's harmonic bed.
The verse rocks through the relative minor, the supertonic, the dominant, and home, a smooth 6m–2m–5–1 built out of a ii–V–I.
It is soothing and inevitable, the harmonic equivalent of rocking a cradle.
The chorus arrives at a bright E major, which is not in the key of C, functioning as the dominant of the relative minor (V/vi).
That borrowed chord lifts the music with a sudden warmth before it resolves back through A minor toward home, and it is the emotional peak of the song.
As the chorus settles, it passes through the subdominant F on its way back to C, a plagal, hymn-like softening after the secondary-dominant lift.
The alternation of that bright lift and the gentle plagal return is what gives the chorus its rise and fall.
The song grows from a quiet verse into a full-voiced chorus, then runs straight into Carry That Weight, which reuses its material.
It is less a standalone song than the tender opening of a two-part finale.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C | 1 | I |
| 2 | Dm | 2m | ii |
| 3 | Em (or E, V/vi) | 3m / 3(7) | iii |
| 4 | F | 4 | IV |
| 5 | G | 5 | V |
| 6 | Am | 6m | vi |
| 7 | B° | 7° | vii° |
Chords sourced from a public transcription, in C major.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in C. Plain = major, m = minor, (7) = a dominant-seventh coloring. Here the chorus opens on 3 as a major chord (E), the secondary dominant V/vi that points at Am.
Most chords (C, Dm, F, Am, E) are plain open triads. The two seventh chords are shown below (low E to high e; x = mute).
Prose analysis of the C-major lullaby, the secondary dominant, and the segue.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files: the exact chords and where the chorus lifts.
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the verse and chorus, if a community tab exists.
Open the Beatles index →