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TheoryTab / The White Stripes / I'm Lonely
I'm Lonely
Song Analysis

I'm Lonely Chords and Melody

I'm Lonely
I'm Lonely – Verse 1
I'm Lonely – Verse 2

Related Music Concepts

Suspended Chords
A chord with built in tension and release
Diminished Chords
A chord built from stacked minor thirds — dark and unstable
Secondary Chords
Chords that temporarily shift the harmonic center
Song Stats Verse 1
Key C Major
Tempo 70 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Blues
Mood Smooth, Simple, Mellow, Bright
Most Used Chord I
Chord Complexity 10
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 0
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 0
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 22
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats Verse 2
Key C Major
Tempo 75 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Blues
Mood Smooth, Simple, Mellow, Bright
Most Used Chord I
Chord Complexity 19
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 0
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 0
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 35
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Song Stats All Sections
Key C Major
Tempo 70 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Blues
Mood Smooth, Simple, Mellow, Bright
Most Used Chord I
Chord Complexity 12
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 0
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 0
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 27
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.

About I'm Lonely

About the Key

𝄞
C Major
It is the most common key in all of popular music. Major keys, along with minor keys, are a common choice for popular songs.
I  IV  V
Most Important Chords
The three most important chords, built off the 1st, 4th and 5th scale degrees are all major chords (C Major, F Major, and G Major).
C Major Cheat Sheet
Popular chords, progressions, downloadable MIDI files and more

About the Chord Progressions

Section Progression Songs with this progression
Verse 1
I IV I V
Dancing Queen by ABBA
Tomorrow Will Be Kinder by The Secret Sisters
Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Kids Songs
December 1963 - Oh What a Night by The Four Seasons
I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash
Hopeless Bleak Despair by They Might Be Giants
The Internet Is For Porn by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez
1,427 songs →
Verse 2
IV I IV vii°/V V I IV
No other theorytabs with this progression

About the Metrics

Chord Complexity
Chord Complexity tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
Melodic Complexity reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
Chord-Melody Tension quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Progression Novelty
Chord Progression Novelty measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Chord-Bass Melody
Chord–Bass Melody evaluates how smoothly the bass moves between chords, scoring higher when it travels step-wise, ascending or descending, instead of jumping directly between root position chords.

Hooktheory's metrics are calculated against the entire database of analyzed songs, where 50 is the "average song." Learn more about each of these metrics here.

Chord Complexity
12
Measures how diverse and sophisticated the chord vocabulary is in this song.
Percentile: 12/100 — below average
Melodic Complexity
0
Measures the range, intervallic variety, and rhythmic complexity of the melody.
Percentile: 0/100 — below average
Chord-Melody Tension
0
Measures how much the melody notes clash or harmonize with the underlying chords.
Percentile: 0/100 — below average
Chord Prog. Novelty
27
Measures how unusual or unexpected the chord progressions are compared to common patterns.
Percentile: 27/100 — below average
Chord-Bass Melody
46
Measures the melodic movement of the bass notes across chord changes.
Percentile: 46/100 — below average

Metrics Radar Chart

I'm LonelyAverage Song

BPM Comparison

Melody Distribution

Melody distribution data is not available for this song.

Syncopation

How many notes fall on each level of metric strength (0 = on-beat, higher = increasingly off-beat)

Level 0
Notes that fall on the downbeat — the strongest metric position in the measure.
Level 1
Notes on a secondary strong beat (e.g. beat 3 in 4/4) — still firmly on the grid.
Level 2
Notes on the remaining primary beats (2 and 4 in 4/4) — moderate metric weight.
Level 3
Notes on eighth-note offbeats — between the primary beats. Audibly syncopated.
Contributed by
Last modified by
deoxy99
Sep 10, 2014
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TheoryTab is the world's largest database of songs analyzed by their chord progressions and melodies. Each entry breaks a song into its harmonic and melodic components using relative notation, making it easy to see the music theory behind any song.
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Roman numerals represent chords by their position in a key rather than by letter name. For example, in the key of C major, I = C, IV = F, V = G, and vi = Am. This relative notation makes it easy to compare chord progressions across songs in different keys. Click here to learn more about relative notation.
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Relative notation describes chords and notes by their function within a key, rather than by their absolute pitch. This means a I–V–vi–IV progression is the same pattern whether the song is in C major, G major, or any other key — making it much easier to recognize common patterns across songs.