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Something by The Beatles, composed by George Harrison, is commonly considered as not just one of the best tunes the Beatles ever tape-recorded, but also among the greatest love tunes of perpetuity, and part of what makes this tune so fantastic is that satisfying chord development!
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0:00 The "Something" chord development.
1:01 Other examples.
1:57 "Something More" by Train.
2:21 "Give Me Love" by George Harrison.
2:48 "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None The Richer.
3:58 the Minor 4 chord.
6:59 BBCSO Piano.
8:06 How the development works.
11:33 Paul McCartney's bass line.
12:19 Piano Outro.
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Have you ever done a video on the “Zelda” chords, using the flat 7 and flat 6? Or just exploring the genius of Koji Kondo in his Zelda, Mario, Nintendo compositions? Thanks for all the great content!
I haven’t seen a vst sponsor a youtube video before. I have way too many pianos already, but if this trend continues my wallet will be unhappy.
well done good soul, nice shirt!
god bless.
Another song that uses this chord progression is the one you’re improvising at the end of the video.
Hope that helps.
The Carpenters use this following extended progression at the end of Goodbye To Love: (when FX have basically multiplied Karen’s voice into 4-part harmony)
All chords except the last two (D7 lasts for 3 beats, played on beats 1 and 3, and G7 only lasts for one beat) last for 2:
C CM C7 F Fm D7 G7
In an Aimee Nolte video about 3 years ago, the Nolte kids helped her identify such songs for multiple progressions!
“Something” also has the classic Am – Am(maj7) – Am7 – D7 walkdown, over the lyric “I don’t want to leave her now.” Similarly a satisfying chromatic walkdown.
I call it the “stairway” progression from the Zeppelin boys. Also in “ain’t no mountain” from Marvin Gaye at the start.
Also I me mine has it
Yeah, this one also satisfying to play on guitar
You can keep walking that down, can’t you. Nice on guitar starting at the 5th fret. Am – Am add 7 – Am7 – D – Dm – Am – B7 – E. A in the bass most of the way and the line cliche (A G# G F# F E D# E) on the 4th string. Sounds familiar?
I always thought it was a D9. That’s how I’ve been playing it at least and will continue to do so, think it sounds a lot better 😀
This should be shown in every copyright lawsuit where chord progressions are at the heart of the case. It clearly demonstrates that progressions, even unique ones, are ubiquitous and part of the public domain.
Totally agree—at this point, there is no new thing under the sun when it comes to chord progressions 😎
@CJ SmithI hear a lot of people say this but there are actually more possible combinations than there are stars in the sky. Of course if you only have a 3 or 4 chord sequence that’s not the case but if you look at 8 or 12 bar sequences it’s easily possible to come up with truly unique sequences. For example Mitski’s ‘Washing Machine Heart’ has a 12 bar sequence that really is unique.
My favorite use of this progression is in the exogenesis symphony by muse. Very melancholy but also very powerful.
Chord progressions can not be copyrighted.
Something and Can’t Keep My Eyes Off Of You are two of my all time favorite songs. I also really like Kiss Me. I think I just discovered the key to my musical taste. Pun very much intended.
One of the best of the chord progression series. Wish this kind of explanation was around 40 years ago!
I totally agree. We would have needed paid for lessons to learn this. YouTube is an amazing resource for learning music.
I remember being 19 when “kiss me” came out, playing that song on the guitar for a girl as she sang along to it. We just had this kinda innocent mutual crush going on that never really lead anywhere, but those were sweet, carefree times
Ahh thats such a wonderful memory
It didn’t lead anywhere, much like that chord progression does on it’s own and much like that band’s career lol sorry!
❤
George had asked Paul to keep the bass simple on Something . Fortunately Macca didn’t comply . That bass part is just about my favorite of Paul’s. Particularly during the solo . The first part of George’s solo is a bit sparse ( sparse and perfect) and the busy bass perfectly fills in the space Harrison is leaving . Just because it’s your song doesn’t mean you know how the other band members should treat it
Paul’s Bass is incredible on that song, glad he didn’t take George’s request and keep the bass part simple, it would have made the song BORING, and Ringo’s fills and no hi hat during the verse’s are perfect…
Paul himself probably could have taken that advice a time or two lol
My guess is none of the boys thought of things in terms of deliberately simple or complex. I honestly think they just had incredible intuition about what to do when, and that’s what Paul felt the song needed
I disagree. If a band mate showed me a song they wrote and I thought I could improve it I would give him the suggestion but if he didn’t want it I would back off and do it his way because he wrote it not me. If I had a song idea I was excited about I wouldn’t want someone changing into something else. It’s about band mates respecting each other. You won’t always like each others songs but you compromise. It’d be different maybe if the band were all coming up with the song together. Kinda like the song get back where there sitting around and just start writing the song.
@Michael Halpert from my experience in a couple bands over the years, I don’t think there’s any set rule either way. I think it’s more a matter of choosing your battles. If you feel strongly enough that something would greatly improve the song, it might be worth really advocating for the change. If it’s causing too much friction or does it make that big of a difference to the final product either way, yeah, just backing off and abiding by the songwriter’s preference might be best
Brilliant job with the chord animations and the explanations. Wonderful editing well done.
Kokomo (Beach Boys) has a very interesting variation of this extended chord progression.
Instead of doing:
C Cmaj7 C7 F Fm C, it goes
C Cmaj7 Gm7 F Fm C
Note that both the C7 and the Gm (or Gm7) have the B♭ note to create the same half-tone descending effect.
Not only that, but the whole verse is:
C Cmaj7 Gm7 F Fm C D7 G7 and back to C in the next verse.
That creates the half-tone descending sequence C B B♭ A A♭ G G♭ F and E, but in addition, G7 C (which is the perfect cadence due to the B C notes sequence) also has the D C notes sequence which, although it is a full tone instead of half, closed the loop back to C where it started.
So does Hooked On a Feeling! (Only thing: I think it uses a C7/Bb instead of Gm7)
Also the outro of “Goodbye to Love” (C CM C7 F Fm C/G D7 G7)
I was searching for someone who thought of Kokomo as well when hearing this chord progression and luckily you delivered the whole theory in bonus 😉
@Zschokks … Believe it or not, I don’t know anything about music theory other than what I learned in this channel.
The onscreen graphics showing the chords and the piano keys are always superb—they make your explanations crystal clear!
I’m a self-taught guitar player who learned completely by ear without even knowing scales. It’s just in the last couple of years that I’ve learned to understand modes to some degree. I absolutely love these videos. Even when I’ve written songs, it’s all been by ear, sometimes by picking the notes of different chords out on the strings and frets without even knowing what they are.. Knowing a little bit of theory is really a gift. Thank you.
Same! I’m enjoying theory as I’m getting older but had no idea when I was first learning!
A well-known song in the French-speaking world that uses that very same progression is “Sensualité” (1993) by Belgian singer Axelle Red.
I – IM7 – I7 – IV
The I7 (borrowed from the mixolydian mode) can also be labelled as V7/IV, as it functions as a secondary dominant of IV.
Also it can be viewed as a line cliche because the progression implies a descending melodic line 1-7-b7-6.
I’ve been playing this progression in variant of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (C Cmaj7 C7 F Fm C D Dm C) – and i think
that this is one of the most beautiful progressions out there. You get a constant descending feel and resolution is so perfect. This take got me thinking about it as just a member of a huge family. Thanks for great research that went into this video.
Literally the first song I thought of! It’s truly a beautiful song isn’t it.
I have ADHD and I’ve spent years trying to learn more music theory and getting frustrated by everything being either too basic or too technical, and you have struck just the right balance for me lately and I am very grateful! I’m finally getting songs actually written completely and actually published and it is a wonderful feeling. I’ve been doing homework by writing a song in whatever chord progression you cover in these videos and it is fun and helpful.
I always actually thought the move to the D chord after these four chords was the coolest thing he did as well as his moving to the A major for the bridge which is awesome.
The piece with a similar descending chord progression that precedes them all is the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from Aram Khachaturian’s Spartacus ballet from 1954. It should be noted that Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (which clearly follows the Adagio progression) preceded Something by two years.
Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love (popularised by Adele in her version) uses the same progression (as per his Simple Twist of Fate) but it ultimately resolves differently. He obviously liked it enough to use twice (albeit with a 22 year gap)!
Radiohead also does the same thing in Planet Telex as in Kiss Me. The same chords too. It’s really interesting how one chord progression can work in two completely different styles of music.
Next to ‘Something’, my favourite song with this progression is Colin James’ ‘Make a Mistake’. It grabs you from the first two notes, immensely soulful and bluesy.