3 Times The Beatles used chords outside the key

In the Western world, our ears are accustomed to diatonic scales and keys, many of us growing up singing Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do. Pop music, contemporary and back in the day, often conformed to these key standards and stuck within these scales (many musicians joke about pop being the inferior genre because it only has 4 chords, not that I agree with this assessment). But The Beatles are a great example of how one can leave diatonic land and explore harmonies outside of the key. Many times they used devices like “Borrowed Chords” or “Mode Mixture,” and sometimes just used things such as “Secondary Dominants.” Let’s take a look under the hood.

Here, There, and Everywhere

This song is in the key of G major, and starts off with a short intro progression, we have G major to B minor. If we take a look at this through the lens of something like Schenkerian analysis (If this is foreign to you, there’s another blog post we have that discusses this sort of chord identification!), that would be something like I - iii, but then we have Bb major (our first chord outside the key) which then leads to Am7 and D7. There’s a few ways to interpret the Bb major. One of the possibilities is that it’s a Borrowed Chord from the key of G minor (where Bb major is a native) and another possibility is that it’s a Tritone Substitution of a Secondary Dominant (in this case, it’s a V/ii, the ii chord being Am which happens to be the next chord of the progression). In a secondary dominant, you’re essentially borrowing the dominant chord from another key (in this case, it would be A since that’s the next chord) to strengthen the pull to the new temporary tonic (in this case, Am). In a regular secondary dominant they would use E7, and part of the reason this works is because E7 has a G#, which is a half step leading tone away from A and therefore has a strong pull to E. If you’re unfamiliar with leading tones and how/why they work, I have a video on YouTube explaining them and giving audible examples.

Now, to get from E7 to Bb, they’re using a Tritone Substitution where you would substitute a dominant chord for another dominant chord a tritone away (3 whole steps). E and Bb are tritones apart, and if we look at the spelling of E7 and Bb7, we get: E G# B D and Bb D F Ab (G#), and the two chords share the 3rds and 7ths. The 3rd and 7ths of a chord are the essential defining chord tones, and since they’re intact after using a tritone substitution, they both can function in a similar way (in addition to now having the bass move down a half step from Bb to A, another satisfying resolution). But given they play the Bb without the 7th, it was more likely intended as a Borrowed Chord rather than a Tritone Sub of a Secondary Dominant.

The chord progression in the verse starts of simple, it goes from G major (I), A minor (ii), B minor (iii), and C major (IV). The chord progression goes up the first four notes of the scale, harmonizing each chord. This might be called Diatonic Planing. The next few chords are a repetition of Fmin7b5 (or Fø7, half diminished), which is the viiᵒ chord, and B7, another chord outside of the key. To see the reason why they might have used this chord, one could look ahead and see the next chord is an Em7 chord, and B7 is the V chord in the key of E, so they’re using a secondary dominant, identified as V/vi. After the secondary dominant resolves to Em7, the next chord is A7, which in the key of G major is normally an A minor, so we have another secondary dominant, this time it’s a V/V. That then resolves to Am (ii) and D7 (V) which then brings us back home to G major. Those are the chords for the verses, but then eventually they bring back the Bb and actually modulate to Bb for the chorus. The chord progression is Bb major to G minor, then to Cm and F major. This is a simple I vi ii V in the key of Bb, and once the chorus is over they return to the chords in the verse.

Fool On The Hill

This song has always been so interesting to me, because of the duality of the song. The verses are in D major, and the bridge is in D minor, and the transition is seamless.

The song starts off going back and forth between D major and E minor (I and ii chords in the key of D) over a D Pedal Point in the bass. All that means, is the chords are changing while the bass keeps a D steady. After some back and forth, the progression moves to Em and to A (ii V), then resolves to D major and to B minor (I vi). Then they repeat the Em and A again, and instead of returning to D major they transition over to D minor. The C# in A works particularly well in preparing the D minor as it’s leading tone, but since they had previously led to D major it may come as a surprise. Over the chord D minor, the piano goes back and forth between A and Bb (the b6 of D minor) giving a strong indication that this is D natural minor, or the D Aeolian mode (see this video if you’re unfamiliar with the modes) but also signaling the next chord, which is G minor, the iv chord of D minor. Then finally once they return to D minor, the piano incorporates a B natural over the D minor chord, signaling the Dorian mode, a nice opportunity for some Mode Mixture, but also giving us another note that’s more in the key of D major than minor, which then resolves back to D major. It’s a simple short progression which went through two different keys seamlessly without any abrupt or jarring transitions.

In My Life

In My Life uses a classic chord substitution by means of Borrowed Chords, and one of my favorite examples. This song is in the key of A major and starts off with a simple progression: || A | E7 | A | E7 ||, back and forth between I and V. Then we see some interesting motion in the verses.

The verse starts off again going from A to E7, but instead of resolving back to A we see E7 resolve to F#m which is the relative minor, and in classical music theory some might refer to this as a Deceptive Cadence. Then the next chord we see is A7/G, which is a slight departure from the key and leads nicely D, so we have a V/IV going to a IV. But then shortly after D, we encounter a D minor in the key of A major, which is another case of a Borrowed Chord where they used the iv chord of A minor. Then finally, the D minor resolves nicely to A, where we have some nice voice leading action. The difference between D major and minor is that D major has an F#, whereas D minor has an F natural. Using the F natural instead of the F# grants us another half step resolution once we’re going back to A, and the F in D minor resolves down by half step to the E in A. Then the chords in the verse thus far repeat once before moving on to the chorus.

In the chorus we start on F# minor, the relative minor again, moving to D major (vi to IV) but the next chord ends up being a G major chord, another chord outside the key. On the online forums, I see a lot of people confused on the functionality of this chord, and it can really be interpreted in a few different ways. The most common interpretation is that it’s a bVII chord that’s major, but that’s also a chord native to A minor, so one interpretation is that it’s a Borrowed Chord. Another example would be that it’s a Secondary Dominant, leading to C. Am is actually the relative major of C, and the chord that comes after G is A. So this could be interpreted as a Secondary Dominant leading to a Deceptive Cadence. At the end of the day, I’m not sure what the intention was but the important thing is that it sounds cool and interesting (at least to my ears), and the explanations I give are just the ways I can “rationalize it” (not that The Beatles needed rationalization from some dude on the internet).

Finally, the chorus continues with another F#m (vi) but then approaches a B chord. This one would make sense as a Secondary Dominant, because it’s a V/V and functionally a big E7 would be a great way to bring us back to A, but instead they resolve to D minor, the borrowed iv chord, and then move back to A. Interesting movement going on in this one!

Last thoughts

These songs are sort of living proof that you can use chromatic harmony and non-diatonic chords in a popular setting and the music still be accessible and widely popular! I hear many afraid of using chords outside a given scale or key, and here’s a few examples of how you can do this seamlessly from the masters themselves. Hope you’ve enjoyed, and as always leave a comment if you have any questions!

- Nick