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6.10.17 "Yesterday" Chords: One of the Best Beatles Songs
As this chord map shows, within the first verse, “Yesterday” goes through all seven harmonic degrees. McCartney uses notable variant chords at two harmonic degrees:
- G major in place of G minor at harmonic degree II;
- Em7 in place of Eº at harmonic degree VII.
The minor seventh serves well as a variant of the diminished chord at harmonic degree VII because the minor seventh contains two out of three of the notes of the diminished chord:
Eº = E, G, B♭
Em7 = E, G, B, D
As we've just seen, this is the same variant chord Cole Porter uses in “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”