The Beatles · from Let It Be (tracked Jan 1969) · opens the album
A study in a folk verse with a walking bass and a modal-mixture bridge.
A warm G-major duet whose verse walks its bass down over a held chord, then a bridge borrows Bb and Gm from the parallel minor before circling back home.
This is the first song on Let It Be, a gentle folk duet in a home key of G major.
The verse holds the same friendly chord but slides its bass note down step by step underneath, a trick called a walking bass.
The chorus rolls between home and its two closest friendly neighbors, the classic folk-song shape.
Then the middle part borrows two sad chords from the matching minor key, giving it a moment of shadow.
That borrowing move is called modal mixture, and it is the whole trick of the bridge.
To see the exact chords and key, open Pollack or Isophonics.
The song is in G major with a plain, singable palette, opening the album with acoustic warmth.
Its clarity in the verse and chorus is exactly what lets the bridge's borrowed chords register as a real color shift.
The verse runs G to C, then a C/B slash chord, then Am7, spelling a bass line that walks down step by step (G, then C, then B, then A) under the chords above.
That descending bass under mostly held harmonies is a McCartney trademark and one of the signatures of Let It Be songwriting.
The chorus runs G, D, C, G, a I–V–IV–I that is the oldest folk cadence in the book.
Using the plainest possible progression at the emotional peak is a McCartney move: reserve the surprises for the bridge and keep the singalong bulletproof.
The bridge uses Bb and Gm, the ♭3 and minor-tonic chords borrowed from the parallel G minor, before returning through Am and D to the home key.
That handful of borrowed chords is the harmonic heart of the song, a moment of shadow between two verses of sunlight.
The form alternates the walking-bass verse with the folk chorus, then breaks to the borrowed bridge and returns.
The whole shape is designed to make the small bridge feel large by contrast.
| Degree | Chord | Nashville | Roman |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | G | 1 | I |
| 2 | Am | 2m | ii |
| b3 | B♭ | b3 | ♭III (borrowed) |
| 4 | C | 4 | IV |
| 5 | D | 5 | V |
| 6 | Em | 6m | vi |
| 1 (minor) | Gm | 1m | i (borrowed) |
Chords sourced from a public transcription, in G major.
Reading the numbers: each is a scale degree in G. Plain = major, m = minor, (7) = a seventh added to the chord, slash chords show a bass tone under the chord, b-degrees are borrowed chords from G minor. Here the bridge borrows ♭3 (Bb) and 1m (Gm) from the parallel minor.
Most chords (G, C, Am, D, Bb, Dm, Gm, Em) are plain open or barre triads. The seventh chord in the verse is shown below.
Prose analysis of the G-major folk verse, the walking bass, and the modal-mixture bridge.
Open Pollack mirror →Downloadable chord and key files: the exact chords and where the bridge borrows.
Open Isophonics →Roman-numeral function and melody for the verse and chorus, if a community tab exists.
Open the Beatles index →