The Beatles · from Abbey Road (1969) · side-two medley
A study in modal mixture and the borrowed minor iv.
A bright A-major verse turns bittersweet when the chorus reaches into the parallel minor for a Dm and tonicizes the flat-three C.
This is a bright, punchy song in the Abbey Road medley, in a home key of A major.
The verse uses friendly, happy chords, home and its close neighbors.
Then the chorus borrows a sadder chord, a minor version of one of them, which tilts the mood.
Borrowing a sad chord from the matching minor key is called modal mixture, and it is the whole trick here.
The chorus also relies on a chord from just below home to add extra color before it settles back.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The verse plants the song firmly in A major with plain, consonant harmony.
That clarity is deliberate, because it sets up the darker chorus chords to register as a real shift in color.
The verse cycles the tonic, subdominant, and relative minor, then adds a D7 to lean back toward the tonic with a bluesy pull.
It is a warm, familiar progression that keeps the verse grounded and singable.
The chorus reaches into the parallel minor for a Dm, the minor version of the subdominant, which drops a sudden shadow across the bright key.
That borrowed minor iv is one of the most emotionally loaded chords in pop, and it is the heart of this song's harmony.
The chorus also swings through a G7 to C, briefly making the flat-three chord feel like a momentary home before the music returns to A.
Borrowing both the minor iv and the flat-three is textbook modal mixture, coloring a major song with chords from its minor side.
The song alternates the bright verse with the shadowed chorus, then drives on into the next medley section rather than cadencing to a close.
The contrast between the two harmonic colors is the form's engine.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | 1 | I |
| 2 | Bm | 2m | ii |
| b3 | C | b3 | ♭III (borrowed) |
| 4 | D | 4 | IV |
| 4 (minor) | Dm | 4m | iv (borrowed) |
| 5 | E | 5 | V |
| 6 | F#m | 6m | vi |
Chords sourced from a public transcription, in A major.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in A. Plain = major, m = minor, (7) = a dominant-seventh coloring, b-degrees are borrowed chords from A minor. Here the chorus borrows 4m (Dm) and b3 (C).
Most chords (A, D, F#m, Dm, C) are plain open or barre triads. The two seventh chords are shown below (low E to high e; x = mute).
Prose analysis of the A-major verse, the borrowed minor iv, and the modal mixture.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files: the exact chords and where the chorus borrows.
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the verse and chorus, if a community tab exists.
Open the Beatles index →