All of Me

John Legend — born John Stephens — wrote “All of Me” with Toby Gad about his then-fiancée, now wife, Chrissy Teigen. “Even when I lose, I'm winning” is his own description of what it's like being with her. It became the biggest hit of his career and, unsurprisingly, a wedding-reception staple ever since.

It reads like a simple verse-chorus ballad, but the chart is more harmonically active than the vocal melody lets on — most of that motion happens in the bass line under sustained chords, which is what slash chords like Bm/D and Bm7/E in the chorus are doing.

The tempo marking — “moderately slow, in 2, half note = 63” — is a cue about feel as much as speed: think of it in a slow two-beats-per-bar pulse rather than four. Watch the bass notes through the chorus especially; Bm/D moving to D/E to E is a stepwise line disguised as a chord progression, and getting that motion smooth under a held right hand is most of what makes it sound like the record.