Chords + Lyrics | Summertime
Intro
| Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 | Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 |
| Ebm7 Gb | Ebm7 Ebm7/Db | Cdim7 Gb7 | F7 |
Verse 1
| Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 | Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 |
Summertime, and the living is easy.
| Ebm7 Gb | Ebm7 Ebm7/Db | Cdim7 Gb7 | F7 |
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.
| Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 | Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 |
Oh, your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good-looking.
| Db Bbm7 | Eb7 Ab7 | Db Gb7 | Cm7 F7 |
So, hush, little baby, don’t you cry.
Verse 2
One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing.
Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to sky.
But ’til that morning, there’s a-nothing can harm you.
With daddy and mammy standing by.
Solo
| Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 | Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 |
| Ebm7 Gb | Ebm7 Ebm7/Db | Cdim7 Gb7 | F7 |
| Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 | Bbm7 Cdim7 | Db6 Cdim7 |
| Db Bbm7 | Eb7 Ab7 | Db Gb7 | Cm7 F7 |
Verse 3
One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing.
Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to sky.
But ’til that morning, there’s a-nothing can harm you.
| Db Bbm7 | Eb7 Ab7 | Db N.C | N.C Bm7 Bbm7 |
With daddy and mammy standing by.
Summertime | Chords + Lyrics (capo 1)
Intro
| Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 | Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 |
| Dm7 F | Dm7 Dm7/C | Bdim7 F7 | E7 |
Verse 1
| Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 | Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 |
Summertime, and the living is easy.
| Dm7 F | Dm7 Dm7/C | Bdim7 F7 | E7 |
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.
| Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 | Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 |
Oh, your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good-looking.
| C Am7 | D7 G7 | C F7 | Bm7 E7 |
So, hush, little baby, don’t you cry.
Verse 2
One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing.
Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to sky.
But ’til that morning, there’s a-nothing can harm you.
With daddy and mammy standing by.
Solo
| Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 | Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 |
| Dm7 F | Dm7 Dm7/C | Bdim7 F7 | E7 |
| Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 | Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 |
| C Am7 | D7 G7 | C F7 | Bm7 E7 |
Verse 3
One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing.
Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to sky.
But ’til that morning, there’s a-nothing can harm you.
| C Am7 | D7 G7 | C N.C | N.C Bbm7 Am7 |
With daddy and mammy standing by.
Summertime Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning Summertime. Rather than using stem separation to extract the guitar as I usually do, this backing track, with and without piano, was created using iReal Pro.
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?
Over the years, Summertime‘s chords have been altered so many times that there’s no definitive version—ask different musicians, and you’ll get different answers.
To keep things authentic, let’s go back to Billie Holiday‘s version and make sure we get that right.
Since guitarists often find it easier to think in Am rather than Bbm, we’ll move everything down a semitone during this chord analysis. It also makes a much better one acoustic guitar arrangement 9more on this later).
At its core, Summertime follows a minor blues progression with a major turnaround. The key to playing it well is alternating the bass. As long as you do that, the chords can be as simple as:
| Am7 (/E) | Am7 (/E) | Am7 (/E) | Am7 (/E) |
|1. Dm7 (/A) | Dm7 (/A) | E7 (/B) | E7 :|||
|2. C Am7 | D7omit3 G7 | C F | C E7 |
The first 12 bars move through VI – II – IIIx – VI, while the turnaround follows I – VI – II – V, a very common progression, then shifts to I – IV – I – IIIx.
I’ve put together some TAB showing a simplified way to play the first eight bars. Check it out further down this guitar lesson
Turning Summertime’s Chords into a Jazzier Progression with Substitutions and Extensions
As you play the chords above, try singing along—you’ll find they work well, though the feel is more blues than jazz.
Now, let’s explore how we can add more jazz elements.
The first chords, Am7 and Am7/E, can be adjusted by replacing Am7/E with some type of E chord. Since E is IIIx, which naturally includes a b9, an E7b9 fits well—much more jazz!
A dom7b9 chord can always be replaced with a dim7 chord a whole step lower, as they share the same notes. In this case, that gives us Ddim7.
Since dim7 chords are built on stacked minor thirds, we can also use Bdim7, Fdim7, or Abdim7, as they are enharmonic equivalents. The closest one above Am7 is Bdim7.
If we keep ascending and play Am with its 3rd in the bass, we get C6. Returning to Bdim7, we create this progression as an alternative to Am7 – Am7/E:
||: Am7 Bdim7 | C6 Bdim7 :||
This is the progression Billie Holiday used (though in Bbm).
I’ve created a TAB showing how you could play this opening riff in Am—keep scrolling to find it.
The rest of the chord progression is altered in a similar way. After reviewing the TAB, these chord charts are all you’ll need for the gig supporting a singer on your acoustic guitar, or play it in a band (Bbm).
Summertime Chord Charts | PDF + iReal Pro Download
If you’d like to download this chart, here’s two PDF’s: Summertime chord chart PDF Bbm and Summertime chord chart PDF Am.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro—here’s a link to the file: Summertime iReal Pro.
With the iRealPro app, you can easily change the key and to really improve your guitar playing, try taking Summertime‘s chords through all 12 keys. You can use the built-in jazz band feature in iRealPro or, even better, record yourself with a loop pedal.
Summertime | TAB
The most covered song of all time, with 25,000 recorded versions – Summertime. Let’s take the “original” and turn it into a one-guitar arrangement in the key of Am, a semitone lower than the original.
To understand the chords, we start with a simple 16-bar minor blues. Try playing this first (if you want to play along with Billie or my backing tracks, place a capo on fret 1).
The alternating bass line is essential. As discussed above, we can turn this into dim7 chords, and using the m3rd of the Am in the bass, we get a C6.
Put it all together and you’ve got: Am7 – Bdim7 – C6 – Bdim7. These are the chords Billie Holiday used (a semitone higher).
Here’s how all this sounds in one guitar arrangement:
Play this using barre chords and it could look like this:
If you want to play in Billie Holiday’s original key, simply play what you see above one semitone higher.
Summertime Chords: Continue Learning
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