The Beatles · from Let It Be (rooftop concert, Jan 1969) · Lennon composition
A study in the dominant-seventh blues key and a cycle-of-fifths bridge.
The verse is B major built entirely from dominant-seventh chords (B7, E7, F#7), the blues idiom in which every chord of the key has a lowered seventh. The bridge climbs by fifths, E7 → B7 → C#7 → F#7, using C#7 as a secondary dominant of F#7.
The home key is B major, played in the blues style, so every main chord has a “7” added to it (B7, E7, F#7).
Adding the 7 to every chord is what makes the song sound bluesy instead of pop-major.
The three main chords are the same three used in a 12-bar blues: home, four-up, five-up.
In the bridge a new chord appears, C#7. It is not from the home key; it is used to point at F#7 from a fifth above, a classic move called a secondary dominant.
The chords climb by fifths in the bridge: E7 to B7 to C#7 to F#7, each one pulling the next along.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The home key is B major, but no B major triad appears anywhere in the song. Every chord of the key is played as a dominant seventh (B7, E7, F#7), which is the defining sound of the blues idiom.
Adding a ♭7 to the tonic chord bends the harmony out of pop-major and into a blues color, without changing the actual key center.
The verse cycles through B7 (1), E7 (4), B7 (1), F#7 (5), B7 (1), which is a compressed version of the standard 12-bar blues shape. The three chords 1, 4, 5 are the primary triads of the key, all voiced as dominant sevenths.
The 5-chord (F#7) provides the strongest pull home; the 4-chord (E7) provides the plagal-flavored contrast.
The bridge runs E7 → B7 → C#7 → F#7, each chord a fifth above the previous. C#7 is not diatonic to B major; it is a secondary dominant, the “V of V” pointing at F#7 from a fifth above.
The bridge repeats the four-chord climb, then hands the harmony back to the verse. This is a classic pre-1960 rock-and-roll bridge shape.
In plain B major the 2 chord would be C#m (2m). Here it appears as C#7, a major-quality dominant seventh. That change turns the 2 chord into a temporary V-chord pointing at F#7, tightening the pull through the cycle of fifths.
The trick is the reason the bridge feels goal-directed instead of harmonically static.
The full structure is a three-verse-with-bridge form, plus a guitar solo over the verse changes, then a repeat of the bridge and an extended tag-out on B7, E7, F#7. No modulation, no key change, no borrowed chord outside the C#7 secondary dominant.
The whole song is B, E, F#, C# in dominant-seventh voicings, four chords total.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | B7 | 1(7) | I7 |
| 2 | C#7 | 2(7) | V/V (secondary dominant) |
| 4 | E7 | 4(7) | IV7 |
| 5 | F#7 | 5(7) | V7 |
Chords sourced from a public transcription, in B major with a blues-idiom dominant-seventh palette.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in B. Plain = major, (7) = a dominant-seventh coloring. The whole song is four dominant sevenths: 1(7), 4(7), 5(7), and 2(7) used as V of V in the bridge.
All four chords are dominant sevenths (low E to high e; x = mute).
Prose analysis of the blues-idiom verse and the cycle-of-fifths bridge.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files (per-album zip that includes One After 909).
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the verse and bridge.
Open the song page →