“Someone You Loved” is a song by singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi and was originally released on his 2018 EP titled “Breach”. It quickly gained popularity in the U.K. and reached number one on the UK Singles Chart as well as the US Billboard Hot 100. It took six months for Capaldi to write the song, spending countless hours to find the melody, which is one of the highlights of the song.
The accompaniment is simply a solo acoustic piano. However, Capaldi is masterful is his arrangement. It is a simple common I-V-vi-IV chord progression throughout the verse and chorus. The bridge introduces a ii-vi-V-vi followed by a ii-vi-V.
What really makes this arrangement amazing is voicing of the chords. In the lower register, the bass line is played as the single root note for each chord and sustained over the measure. In the chorus, the root is doubled by adding the note one octave lower. For the entire song, the upper chord voicing is a rocking 3rd and 5th, with the 3rd being played first and above the 5th as a 2nd inversion. This leads to a full yet very light feel. At the end of the intro and each chorus, the last 3rd drops a whole step to the chord’s 2nd. This is a subtle but noticable changup that adds a lot to the simple accompaniment. Finally, the last verse and the end of the outro play open chords which highlight the simple voicing.
While the original song is played in Db major, here is the verse arrangement in C major:
You can download the sheet music in either the original key of Db major or in C major.
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