Harrison biographer Simon Leng describes the tune as "the most extreme example" of its composer's "circular melodic" style, "seeming to snake through an unending series of harmonic steps". As reproduced in "I, Me, Mine", Harrison's handwritten lyrics show the opening chord as E minor and the bass line descending through every semitone from E down to B, followed by a change to a B7 chord; the second part of the verse, beginning on an A minor chord, then follows a descending sequence that he writes as "A – A – G – F – E – A", before arriving at D major. Harrison says in his autobiography that the melody and "weird chords" came about through experimentation on a keyboard instrument, which allowed him more harmonic possibilities than are available on a guitar. The song's time signature is a waltz-like 3/4 time,