About

What is this?

Beatlesongs.wiki is a tagging database of the complete Beatles catalogue – every song from 1962 through to the reunion singles, taken apart chord by chord, tag by tag, and put back together in ways that let you see patterns you'd never spot by just listening. Think of it as a musical X-ray machine. It won't tell you why “Something” makes you feel the way it does – but it can show you that George used a descending chromatic bass line to get there, find every other Beatles song that did the same thing, see how that technique trended across albums and years, discover which songwriters favoured it most, and explore what else tends to come with it – which lyrical themes, which moods, which studio techniques, which instruments, which song structures, and stumble onto unexpected connections: did you know that “A Day in the Life” shares a chord sequence with “Here Comes the Sun”?

Every song is tagged across five categories – Text, Music, Studio, People, and Info – covering everything from lyrical motifs and harmonic techniques to who played what instrument and which tape tricks George Martin pulled out of his sleeve. The result is a browsable, searchable, graphable map of the Beatles' musical DNA. And it's getting better all the time.

Who is it for?

For anyone who likes the Beatles: the occasional listener, the obsessive, and the scholar with the footnotes. Whether you want the character of one song, the trends across an album or a member or a year, the way the writing, the collaborators and the technology all changed together, or the whole body of work seen through a single aspect, it is here. From lyrical motifs like sadness to the circle of fifths, from a surprising missing Beatle to how often they reached for a Rickenbacker 360/12, all of it built wiki style. Start wherever you like and follow it as far as you want to go.

Questions about how we use specific terms, the methodology, or anything else? Head to the FAQ.

Ways to explore

Six doors in. Pick whichever feels right:

How we tag?

Every tag on the site is the product of three steps, in this order:

1. Source research. It starts with the record itself: repeated close listening, and our own research into how each song was written and made, set against the published scholarship (full list in Sources & thanks).
2. Analysis. Chord transcriptions, structural breakdowns, lyrical analysis and session data, worked out by hand with the aid of code and AI.
3. Manual review. Every proposed tag is reviewed by a human before it lands. Borderline calls get cross-referenced against multiple sources.

More on conventions and judgment calls in the FAQ.

Sources & thanks

I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves. Every chord transcription, tag and structural breakdown here was researched and verified by ear – but none of it would have been possible without the scholars, writers and researchers below. Each of them is worth your time in their own right:

• Alan W. Pollack's “Notes on...” series – close musicological readings of every song, and our reference for harmonic detail.
• Mark Lewisohn's recording session research – the studio history date by date, and our reference for personnel and session detail.
• The Beatles Complete Scores (Hal Leonard) – the printed transcription, used as a starting point and checked against the recordings.
• Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head – the song-by-song companion that shaped how a generation thinks about this music.
• Beatles Music History by David Rybaczewski – a song-by-song history of the sessions: which take was used, who was in the room, and which instrument was in their hands.
• Andy Babiuk's Beatles Gear – an account of what the band played and when, instrument by instrument and year by year.
• Beatles Bible – an encyclopaedic resource on recording history, instrumentation, and session details.
• Aaron Krerowicz – timecoded formal-structure breakdowns of every Beatles song.
• Ethan Hein – for music theory context that informed how we think about harmony and structure.
• Beatles Songwriting Academy – insightful analysis of songwriting craft, rhythm, and song structure.
• Ringo's Beatle Kits – a specialist history of every drum kit Ringo played, down to the day each one arrived.
• Wikipedia – for biographical data, discography details, and member photos.
• MusicBrainz – for album artwork, release and personnel data.
• The Official Charts Company and Billboard – the UK and US chart positions behind every chart tag.
• The RIAA Gold & Platinum database – for American sales certifications and, crucially, the date each one was awarded.
• cifraclub, hooktheory, songsterr, bellandco, pianowithnate – community chord transcription and analysis sites.
• The Beatles Bible Fab Forum – fan research rather than published scholarship, but its per-song instrument threads are meticulous and cite their own sources. Anything taken from there is checked against a second source before it lands.

Errors are ours; corrections are always welcome via the contact form or the “Something's wrong?” button on any song page.

How to cite this site

Content is released under CC BY-SA 4.0 – reuse with attribution, share alike. A simple plain-text form:

APA, MLA, and BibTeX formats are in the FAQ.

On the small matter of money

Can't buy me love – but server bills, alas, are a different story. Some links on this site – mostly books, albums, plugins, and Beatles-branded merch on Amazon – are affiliate links. If you click one and end up buying something, a modest sliver of the sale finds its way back here, at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the lights on and the research going.

There's also a small Ko-fi button tucked into the footer. If the site has brought you joy, a one-off tip goes a long way – the love you take is equal to the love you make. No strings, no newsletter, no guilt trips on graph pages (well, maybe one gentle nudge after the third graph).

As an Amazon Associate, the site earns from qualifying purchases.

About the author

Hi, I'm Nahdi Lazar. I'm a musician, developer, and lifelong Beatles obsessive. I'd been carrying around a lot of this data and these connections in my head for years – which songs share a mood, who plays what on which track, which lyrical motifs recur where – and I needed somewhere to put them all down.

The spark was an embarrassingly small question: “How many Beatles songs mention animals?” I woke up, fell out of bed, started researching and ended up tagging the entire catalogue.

I built this site because I wanted a tool that didn't exist – something that bridged the gap between casual fandom and academic analysis. I hope it helps you hear these songs in a new way.

Get in touch

Got a suggestion? Spotted an error? Have an idea for a new graph or tag type? Want to collaborate on something? Just want to argue about whether “Blue Jay Way” is underrated? I'd love to hear from you.

Drop me a line, stating point of view →