Chords + Lyrics | Lovely Day
Intro
| Emaj7 | C#m7 | Amaj7 (Amaj9) | Amaj7 Cmaj7 Bm7 |
| Emaj7 | C#m7 | Amaj7 | Cmaj7 Bm7 |
Verse 1
| Emaj7 | C#m7 |
When I wake up in the morning, love,
| Amaj7 (Amaj9) | Amaj7 Cmaj7 Bm7 |
and the sunlight hurts my eyes.
| Emaj7 | C#m7 |
And something without warning, love,
| Amaj7 | Cmaj7 |
bears heavy on my mind.
Bridge 1
||: C/D | D/E | Am7 | Bm7 :||
Then I look at you, and the world’s alright with me.
Just one look at you, and I know it’s gonna be.
Chorus 1
| Emaj7 | C#m7 |
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day).
| Amaj7 | Cmaj7 Bm7 |
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day).
| Emaj7 | C#m7 |
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day).
| Amaj7 | Cmaj7 Bm7 |
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day).
Verse 2
When the day that lies ahead of me,
seems impossible to face.
When someone else instead of me,
always seems to know the way.
Bridge 2
Then I look at you, and the world’s alright with me.
Just one look at you, and I know it’s gonna be.
Chorus 2
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
Verse 3
When the day that lies ahead of me,
seems impossible to face.
And when someone else instead of me,
always seems to know the way.
Bridge 3
Then I look at you, and the world’s alright with me.
Just one look at you, and I know it’s gonna be.
Chorus 3
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
Chorus 4
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
A lovely day (lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
(Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day)
Lovely Day Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning Lovely Day. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
You can play Lovely Day on just one acoustic guitar. To make it work, you’ll need to focus on the rhythmic feel of the bass in the original recording.
From this foundation, you can shape the chordal arrangement to suit the singer. Once the bass groove is established, you can reference it and blend it with the chords in an improvised way.
I’ve created some TAB that, once worked through and absorbed, will naturally blend into your playing in an organic, improvised way. You’ll find said TAB further down this guitar lesson.
On electric guitar, playing Lovely Day is all about finding small, funky rhythm parts that complement the bass and keyboards in the band. There’s TAB for this as well.
The best way to fully grasp Lovely Day’s chords is to play them on both the acoustic and electric guitar. Doing so will give you a broader perspective on the song’s harmony.
For example, take a look at the bridge chords:
||: C/D | D/E | Am7 | Bm7 :||
Playing this on electric using small chord shapes, you’ll soon notice that C/D and Am7 are essentially the same, as are D/E and Bm7.
Since the full band carries the arrangement, highlighting these similarities can be effective. You might play the same part twice, while the rest of the band fills in the differences as they change the bass notes.
Intro + Verse
The intro and verse progression initially follow the Roman Numerals I – VI – IV in the key of E. This set up a safe/”heard it all before” chordal landscape.
Next, we quickly hear two chords outside the diatonic key, which we could describe as bVIx – Vm, or as a modal interchange using the parallel minor (Em), playing IV – III, like this:
| Emaj7 | C#m7 | Amaj7 (Amaj9) | Amaj7 Cmaj7 Bm7 |
| Emaj7 | C#m7 | Amaj7 | Cmaj7 Bm7 |
Chorus
The chorus chords are the same as the second half of the verse. However, we will need a part that is different to the verse on the guitar in order to tell the listener that this is a new section. Again, I must show you TAB to point you in the right direction.
Having studied Lovely Day’s chords in depth—using chords, lyrics, the backing tracks, and my TAB—this chord chart is all you need for the gig.
Lovely Day Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
Should you want to download my chart, here’s a PDF: Lovely Day chord chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: Lovely Day iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
Lovely Day | TAB
Let’s look at how to actually play Lovely Day‘s chords on both acoustic and electric guitar. Play along with the backing tracks to make sure it’s working.
As the bass is the prominent instrument, let’s start by learning the intro and verse on the bass – it looks like this in TAB:
Play this with the backing tracks as well, especially during the intro, to get the feel just right.
Next, lets look at the original guitar from the intro and verse.
As great as this part is, it doesn’t come back when the verse return and it is dependent on the shaker, strings and keyboards on the recording to fit in.
In a live situation, you will need to pull your weight more than just play this part so let’s look at what that could be, here’s the verse.
I like creating some movement between the root and the 7th, hence the E – Emaj7 – E – Emaj7. Same goes for the C#m and C#m7.
An Amaj7 and C#m is essentially the same notes so for Amaj7, I just kept the same part which gave us an Asus2 or Amaj9 chords.
For the last bar, I kept the Amaj7 idea, then Cmaj7 – Bm7 using 8th notes. When repeated, it’s straight to Cmaj7 so I maintained the rhythm.
Bridge
Here’s the bridge for the electric guitar:
Since C is the same chord as Am7, and D is the same as Bm7, we highlight this by playing almost the same thing twice. The only difference being that the first time has more strums.
Chorus
This is similar to the verse, with two additional strums. The main difference being that we now include the top string.
To fret the chords going from Emaj7 to C#m7; use the ring finger on C#m7, then switch to index for C#m.
Play along using the backing track, when you feel comfortable, try varying the ideas presented above. Maybe you start with the original part!
Acoustic Guitar TAB
Lovely Day works really well in the Motown Soul repertoire, I would go as far as calling it a standard. As you’ll find plenty of singers who know it, it’s a good suggestion for the acoustic repertoire too.
Here’s an Acoustic verse idea. We take advantage of the two available open strings:
Bridge
The bridge is tricky as we must include all the cool bass lines. Practise this a lot until it feels natural so you can grove effortlessly.
Clearly, this has to be more involved on the acoustic than the electric – the bass line must be included and we want to emphasise the difference between C and Am7, rather than the similarities.
Chorus
Finally, here’s the chorus on acoustic:
When you can play all the acoustic TAB, go back to the chord chart and play the complete song with a singer.
Soloing Techniques for Lovely Day | Mastering the Modal Interchange
Lovely Day by Bill Withers uses the chordal technique of modal interchange, making it an excellent piece for practising modal improvisations. It’s also quite repetitive, which works to your advantage when developing soloing skills.
Verse
The verse chords—E (I), C#m7 (VI), and Amaj7 (IV)—are all derived from the key of E. This means the progression is “in major,” or Ionian. Nothing unusual here, the magic happens in the last two chords.
In the final bar, we switch from E Ionian to E Aeolian, as the chords transition to Cmaj7 (IV) and Bm7 (III).
This shift gives you two options for soloing:
- E major (Ionian) for three bars, and E minor (Aeolian) for one bar.
Or go full modal:
The challenge when improvising is to avoid sounding like you’re simply running through all those scales as quickly as possible. Focus on musicality and phrasing instead of speed.
Bridge
The bridge is an extended version of this concept, where we settle in E Aeolian (or “E minor”), even though we never explicitly play Em.
The chords for Lovely Day‘s bridge are:
- C/D (IV) – D/E (V) – Am7 (II) – Bm7 (III).
For soloing, you have these options:
- E minor (Aeolian) as the primary scale.
- C Lydian – D Mixolydian – A Dorian – B Phrygian.
In the playlist above, after Bill’s original version, you’ll find a couple of piano tutorials that break down how to play Lovely Day. Watch them to deepen your understanding and learn even more!
Lovely Day Chords: Continue Learning
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