The Beatles · from Abbey Road (1969) · side-two medley
A study in lush, dreamlike major-key harmony.
Slow major-seventh chords and close three-part voices drift over a soft E-major bed, then the piece dissolves into a coda sung in invented Romance-language syllables.
This is a slow, dreamy song in a warm home key called E major.
The chords are soft and jazzy, the kind with an extra note added on top that makes them sound like a sunset.
Three singers stack close notes together, so the voices sound like one glowing chord.
Some chords step outside the home key for a moment, which is called borrowing, and it adds the dreamy color.
At the end the singers make up words that only sound like Spanish or Italian, over a gently repeating chord.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The piece is in E major and moves at a very slow harmonic rhythm, letting each chord bloom before the next.
That unhurried tonal center is the frame the lush colors and borrowed chords decorate.
The harmony favors major-seventh and added-tone chords rather than plain triads, which is what gives Sun King its jazzy, hazy glow.
Non-diatonic borrowed chords slip in to tint the E-major center, a modal-mixture shading that keeps the key feeling dreamlike rather than bright.
Confirm the exact chords and their qualities at Isophonics and BeatlesFC.
Like Because, the vocal is a tightly spaced three-part harmony, the singers layered so the words blur into a single shimmering chord.
The close spacing is what makes the harmony feel plush rather than merely stacked.
The accompaniment rolls its chords out slowly and leaves generous room around each note, so the added-tone colors ring clearly.
The near-static harmonic motion turns the texture itself into the main event.
Sun King is a short movement in the medley, and it closes on an extended vamp sung in invented, Romance-sounding syllables.
Harmonically the coda is a gentle loop that prioritizes mood and color over any strong cadence.
Confirm the coda's exact chords at Pollack.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | E | 1 | I |
| 2 | F#m | 2m | ii |
| 3 | G#m | 3m | iii |
| 4 | A | 4 | IV |
| 5 | B | 5 | V |
| 6 | C#m | 6m | vi |
| 7 | D#° | 7° | vii° |
Chords sourced from a public transcription. An E-centered intro drifts to borrowed color chords in the vocal section.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in E major. Plain = major, m = minor, ° = diminished, (7)/(maj7) = seventh colorings, b-degrees are borrowed chromatic steps.
The tonic E is a plain open triad, so no special diagram is needed.
The lush major-seventh and borrowed chords are best read as voicings from a full transcription at the sources below.
Prose analysis of the E-major center, the borrowed-chord color, and the coda.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files: the exact major-seventh and borrowed chords in seconds.
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the dreamy harmony, if a community tab exists.
Open the Beatles index →