The Beatles · non-album single B-side (April 1969) · Harrison composition
A study in tonal ambiguity between C major and A minor, chromatic ♭VI slide, and V/vi secondary dominant.
Every chord is a dominant seventh in Harrison's blues idiom (like For You Blue), but instead of a plain 12-bar the song shuttles between C major (verse) and A minor (chorus) with a chromatic A♭ (♭VI) slide and an E7 that acts as V of vi to pull the tonal center to the relative minor.
The home key starts as C major in the verse (C, Dm), but the chorus keeps steering to A minor, the relative minor of C. The song is genuinely torn between the two.
Every chord has a seventh added to it (C7, F7, G7). That is Harrison's blues coloring, the same trick he used in For You Blue.
The chorus has a chromatic slide: F7 up to Ab (called G# in some transcriptions), back down to F7. Ab is not from C major; it is the flat 6-chord, a color borrowed from C minor to darken the chorus for a beat.
The E7 chord in the chorus points at the A-minor chord from a fifth above. That is called V of vi, a secondary dominant of the 6-chord.
The bridge shuttles between G7 (5-chord) and F7 (4-chord), then a D7 with F# in the bass (V of V) pushes the harmony back to G7. That is a chromatic pedal push.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The verse opens on C7 and moves to Dm7 (1(7) → 2m7), a plain C-major setup. But the chorus never closes on C; it closes on Am (the 6-chord in C, or the 1 chord in A minor).
The song is one of Harrison's tonally ambiguous pieces, moving between C major and A minor without formally modulating. Every phrase can be read in either key.
C7 (1), F7 (4), G7 (5), E7 (V/vi) are all dominant sevenths. Dm7 (2m7) is a minor seventh. Am is the only plain triad in the song, and it serves as the pivot chord to A minor.
This is the same blues-idiom trick Harrison uses in For You Blue: adding a ♭7 to every major chord in the key. Here the trick is applied to a harmonically complex chord palette, not to a plain 12-bar shape.
The chorus runs F7 (4(7)), then a bare A♭ triad (spelled G# in some transcriptions), then back to F7. A♭ is not diatonic to C major; it is the ♭VI chord, borrowed from C minor as a chromatic-mixture color.
The half-step slide (F to A♭ is a minor third, but the voice leading uses a chromatic upper-neighbor motion) is a classic Harrison touch, giving the chorus a Baroque-like chromatic dip inside an otherwise diatonic passage.
Every chorus ends E7 → Am. E7 is not diatonic to C major (C major has Em, not E7); it is the V of vi, a secondary dominant pointing at Am from a fifth above with the raised third (G#) as leading tone.
This is the mechanism that keeps steering the tune to A minor. If the chorus closed on C the song would be in C; because it closes on Am (via V/vi), the tonal ambiguity is baked into the form.
The bridge shuttles between G7 (5(7)) and F7 (4(7)), then approaches the final G7 through D7 with F# in the bass. D7 is not in C major (C has Dm7); it is a secondary dominant, V of V, and putting F# in the bass gives a chromatic step from F (in F7) up to F# (in D7/F#) up to G (in G7).
The chromatic bass step F → F# → G is what makes the bridge feel goal-directed instead of stuck between two chords.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C7 | 1(7) | I7 (blues-colored tonic) |
| 2 | Dm7 | 2m7 | ii7 |
| 3 | E7 | 3(7) | V/vi (secondary dominant) |
| 4 | F7 | 4(7) | IV7 |
| 5 | G7 | 5(7) | V7 |
| ♭6 | A♭ (G#) | b6 | ♭VI (chromatic-mixture) |
| 6 | Am | 6m | vi (pivot to A minor) |
| 2 (as V/V) | D7/F# | 2(7)/#4 | V/V with chromatic bass |
Chords sourced from a public transcription, in C major with an A-minor pull.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in C. Plain = major, (7) = dominant seventh, m7 = minor seventh. Slashes show inverted bass. ♭6 is a chromatic-mixture chord (borrowed from C minor). E7 is a secondary dominant of vi. D7/F# is a secondary dominant of V with chromatic bass.
The non-obvious voicings and the chromatic slide chord (low E to high e; x = mute).
Prose analysis of the C-major / A-minor ambiguity, the ♭VI slide, and the secondary dominants.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files (non-album singles zip includes this track).
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the verse, chorus, and bridge.
Open the song page →