Best/worst key changes

just wanted to say that, carry on...

ah hell ... "RDNZL"!

This, quite simply, cannot be argued with.

• Zage & Evan's "In The Year 2525". (A key change every verse!!!)
• Kylie's "I Should be So Lucky". (A geometric series of key changes within the verse!!!! In fact, a lot mid-period SAW records deliberately had the verse in a lower key than the chorus to allow a key change upwrds every chorus!!!)

  ― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Naturally.

OK, I'll also give props to the key change only-for-the-solo on Weezer's "Sweater Song" (I think). Kinda clever, rockin'.

My mom's favorite album by the way: Sunflower. She's more partial to "Darlin'" though.

(ducks.)

Does anyone have the slightest empathy wid dis ?

Weren't most of Sweet's big hits one key change after another?

No, these are the best. 'I will always love you', the Whitney version.

Technically not a key change, but the transition from verse to chorus in Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" is possibly the most horrifying moment in the history of pop music.

"modulate for me andy" in that drunken/stoned hazy laugh.

I guess you just have to hear it.

Oh God in fucking heaven is this EVER the case. I always imagine him losing his place, running over the huge syllable-count in the chorus, and fucking up the rhythm before the key change, too, whenever I imagine the song.

(i.e. "These eyes / Oh, they're cryin' / These eyes have seen a lot of love, but they're never gonna see a lot of love like a woman like they've seen a lot of wacka wacka blacka like I've had ...um... ... (pause) with youuuuu... THESE EYES... AAAAUUUGGGGH THEY'RE CRYIN'" *(etc.)).

*in new key

Ref: Talking Heads (live that is - song transitions), funk bands (none that I can think of - hopefully you know what I'm talking about..)

http://www.gearchange.org/

Great key changes can really make a song, but pointless ones abound. Loads of 70s pastiche rock n roll stuff did the so-called Truck Driver's key change, moving up a tone, more than once, to convey mounting excitement towards the end; but really it just serves to show up the paucity of musical ideas in the song. Rockin Around the Christmas Tree (Shakin Stevens?) springs to mind.

However, the inarguable champion of all key changes has to be "Walk The Line". Not only does he change keys every verse, he actually HUMS the home note, on record, to make sure he knows what he's doing! Memorable, strangely hooky, and folksy/intimate in a way that actually serves the song's narrative.

"Think" (Aretha Franklin) gets points for being one of the earliest key changes there is.

Generally speaking, I like half-step key changes more than whole-step ones. "English Rose" by The Jam, for example.

"Day After Day" by The Pretenders rules because a) it comes early and b) it's a step and a half.

"Just Once" by Jeffrey Osborne is a great key change not so much on its own terms but because it's led into seamlessly by a bizarro bridge.

oh FUCK yeah. OTM

also gotta give it up for badfinger's "baby blue" -- the key change into the bridge ("what would i dooooo..."), THEN the key change into the solo! they perfected that shit.

I remember one summer back in the mid-'80s hanging out in the park with a cousin, listening to a lousy local country-rock band play a free concert in the bandshell. They closed "Elvira", that Oak Ridge Boys song, an endless rendition that climaxed with, like, a dozen repetitions of the chorus, a steady half-step upward modulation on each one. It was horrible and hilarious all at once.

The modulation on Louis Philippe's "Sweet Dollar Bill" is brilliant, too, both into the chorus and out of the chorus.

AND

Both are tonic-mediant relationships, you uncaring non-technicians. The best way to change key, I think.

Although it's not a key change proper, the "I need your love..." section in Burt Bacharach's "This Guy's In Love With You" is pretty choice. The entire song sounds like it's in C, but then, in the chorus, it shifts gears and makes it sound like the entire song has always been in G.

The worst key change happens at the end of the bridge on The Left Banke's "She May Call You Up Tonight". Ruins an otherwise perfect song.

http://www.animationusa.com/picts/wbpict/long.jpg

?

The key change at the end of The Village Green Preservation Society always bugged me.

Great chorus, good guitar lick, so-so protest lyrics, ruined.

(Shock!)

Big Country in a nutshell.

So, Best.

Worst is the Houston/Carey/Dion thing already mentioned.

The first thing that struck me, and I don't even like the song all that much, was "Here In Your Bedroom" by Goldfinger, which jumps up for half the second verse and then goes back into the original key, unexpected and interesting.

I love when songs modulate up right before a solo (a la "And I Love Her" as noted upthread) other examples of that, Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne, Trina Magna by Blues Traveler.

I also enjoy those rare occaisions where someone says "forget this half step up nonsense, we're going up a FOURTH." Seminal example of that being Son of a Preacher Man.

Of course in the version "we all know and love" the silence is filled with church bells ringing and another round of "LADADLALDALALDLALADDDADADADA", a true travesty, even though I secretly prefer this version.

-- Geir Hongro

Yeah, that's a good'un indeed. And hey, didn't Freddie & The Dreamers do nearly the exact same thing in "I'm Telling You Know"? Must be some kinda Merseybeat thing. (Actually, I think those sorts of key changes work best if they occur immediately after a bridge.)

Hm, remind me where there's a key change on that EP?

The best key change ever is the completely unprepared change from C major to F major in the bridge of "From Me To You". Totally revolutionary at the time (at least in a "rock" song)

It's a nice key change, but it's neither completely unprepared nor was it totally revolutionary. The C at the end of the verse acts as the pivot chord, and the addition of a single accidental is just not that mind-blowing. The G+ chord that comes a few bars later is cooler.

(musical explanation follows)

The chord progression is really brilliant and subtle. The song starts off in C, following a fairly standard chord structure that ends with a spicy G+ chord. It repeats itself in C, but when it gets to the G+ chord for a second time, it re-interprets the G+ as an Eb+ (augmented chords, like diminished chords, are symmetrical, and so any note in the chord can be treated as the root), and resolves to Ab major. It repeats the original chord progression in Ab major, and when it hits the Eb+ again, it now treats it as a B+ and resolves to E major. Same thing again, but this time the B+ gets treated as G+ again and the song returns to C, where it ends. So three key changes and a complete symmetrical (each modulation is by a minor sixth, a much-favored non-diatonic tone in major-key pop songs, also contained in the iv chord that appears in each verse) traversal of the circle of fifths. And the first several times I listened to it I didn't even notice the key changes. The little slide guitar bit makes the transitions super smooth. For all of their great harmonic tricks, I can't think of a Beatles song that does anything quite like this.

(end musical explanation)

Or maybe it goes around the circle of fifths, now I can't remeber

"...the harmonic card trick contained in its intro remains one of their most clever and daring ever."

More from AWP:

"Quite unusually for Lennon and McCartney, we find here an old fashioned kind of intro in the style of, say, Gerswhin or Porter. It's fully developed as a section unto itself with material not heard in the remainder of the song, and set-off from what follows by a different texture in the instrumental backing track...
Next note The harmonic shape of this section is another story entirely; hardly at all "old fashioned" and rather both ingenious and clumsy at the same time. At the very start you pretty much assume that the opening chord (e-flat-minor) is the i chord of the home key but as the music free-falls first through D-Major (A tritone substitution! -Ed) and then continues down to D-flat-Major, you're no longer so sure about that; in fact, for a couple measures, you're totally lost and out to sea — go ahead and admit it, it's good for your soul :-)
Next note It's only after we come back to the e-flat chord in measure 5 that you quite regain your bearings, only now, this e-flat chord feels much more like a ii in relationship to the D-flat chord of the previous measure. The real coup is in the way in which the second time around, the music makes an harmonic pivot, using the same D-Major chord that had appeared more or less in passing during the first phrase, now as the I of the actual home key of the song."

Right, that's what it says in the paragraph I quoted.

I mean both things: the original chromatic descent from Eb minor as tonic down to the VII chord and then using the chromatic passing chord as the new tonic the second time down. What the hell?

The chromatic passing chord, as I briefly alluded to, can be analyzed as a tritone substitution. It's a common re-harmonization technique in jazz, and George Gershwin used it in his songs, which is where I would guess The Beatles got it. I did a presentation on Gershwin in a 20th century music class where I compared his "I've Got a Crush on You" to "If I Fell." Both use that same tritone substitution anyway.

It works by substituting for the V chord the chord with its root a tritone away. So in Db major, a ii V7 I progression would be Ebm Ab7 Db. The chord a tritone away from Ab7 is D(7). The substitution works because Ab7 and D7 share two crucial notes: their third and seventh, C and F# (Gb). The Beatles don't use the seventh in the D chord, but it's the same principle. It also creates that slick chromatic root motion.

Neat, huh?

Simultaneously best and worst key change (between verse and chorus, obviously - i mean, how can you miss a key change like that)

i don't think that this is up for debate

I would like to hear the Homer and Jethro parody/fakeout trucker's key change mentioned here.

The worst key change ever is in Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams (Get Into My Car)".

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:48 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I like how he doesn't try to sneak it on to you or anything, though - it gets a regal welcome! "Get out of my...Get out of MY! GET OUT OF MY DREAMS!" I like the gulf between that level of pomp and the topic of the song, which is demanding that a woman get into your car. Based on the spoken-word intro I wonder if this is being done at gunpoint.

I can't figure it out, but there's song acoustic singer-songwriter type thing that sounds like that guy from Sublime or a shittier Anthony Keidis, and the thing has about 5 key changes in it. It's short, but it packs a lot of irritation into its length. Ugh. My sister-in-law's iTunes is so annoying when she gets a mind to play it.

Then there was some song my friend Joseph and I were listening to repeatedly last fall with all of these brilliant uses of key changes, but I can't remember what right now.

"there's song acoustic"

no I did not proofread that.

song - some, I guess

"Man In The Mirror" owns this thread.

for serious. it's so shameless.

I've always liked the way Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite imperceptively drifts up in key and has to loudly reset itself now and again so as to not go up too much.

That song with all the great/effective key changes I couldn't remember was Lee Perry's "Soul Fire."

I've always liked the way Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite imperceptively drifts up in key and has to loudly reset itself now and again so as to not go up too much.

― ecuador_with_a_c, Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:39 (13 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You know, I never noticed that!

'heal the world' is so much worse than man in the mirror, at least he does some cool singing after the change in the latter

I really like the key changes in Herbert's 'Movers and the Shakers'. None precisely subtle tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0xkgxD3x1k

'heal the world' is so much worse than man in the mirror, at least he does some cool singing after the change in the latter

but in 'man in the mirror' the key changes on the word..."change!" like i said, just shameless.

yeah i guess. my last thoughts on mj while he was still breathing :(

Well, still talking about him right to the end.

There's a key change in Stevie Wonder's 'If You Really Love Me' to die for

Hahaha I thought this was bumped in memory of Will You Be There. That's my favourite song of his.

bestest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwmCfpzYNs

worst:

Sublime - "Pool Shark"

heh i welled up listening to 'heal the world' last night btw (i was welling up about every other song for a while but still)

What happens between the verse and chorus um verse-chorus and bridge uh the two main parts of "Eternal Flame" has some thing that I'm apparently hardwired to be ambushed-by-unexpected-emotion by.

It's kind of a doofy song, but I believe the Beach Boys' "California Girls" has some weird stuff going on, key-wise.

2:46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6mYcDYJzkg
wow

"Build me up Buttercup" changes up for the only time in the song, ten seconds from the end. Hardcore!

Intervention by Arcade Fire has a great key change from C to G that sounds like a bridge at first.

Right, let's have a revive.

At Devon Record Club on Tuesday Tom said something along the lines of "all songs with key changes are horrible and rubbish", which is quite a statement.

After some confused discussion, we came to the conclusion that he specifically meant the type of really noticable, obvious, stadium-pleasing "take the chorus up a notch for euphoria" key changes (like Livin' On A Prayer) rather than the "subtle shift in the song's feel" key changes (like We Can Work It Out).

Which is kind of fair enough, but I'm determined to prove him wrong.

So, more examples please, of both kinds...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUa7PmsK408

this is good

i love the key changes in beyonce's 'love on top'!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvQpjt5JTIQ

Worst - the end-of-bridge, last-verse upward key change, often accompanied by slowing down the last verse for added melodrama, as in the aforementioned "I Will Always Love You". The suspense-building last-verse upward key change is a hackneyed songwriting device used that in the hands of less adroit invariably sounds trite and cliched. Except in the adroit hands of a select few: the Who taking each verse of "My Generation" up a key, until by the end the song is in four different keys.

The Beach Boys were the masters of the unexpected key change. "Pom Pom Play Girl", though s slight song, manages to work every one of the 12 major chords into it, sometimes in major-7th variations, but avoids using even one minor chord.

"Dance, Dance, Dance" has a great modulation to a higher key in the last verse - a common musical feature, except that Brian Wilson starts the verse in the normal key an shifts upwards unexpectedly a few seconds into the verse after starting it in the usual key. But the best use of this technique is in "Girls on the Beach". This song, about how the attractive ladies lining the CA coastline beaches are not unattainable princesses, is set to five-part harmonies promising "one waits there for you" if you are respectful, each of the three verses featuring an unexpected key change smack dab in the middle as the title phrase is sung, only to revert to the original key near the end of each verse. You wouldn't expect any more key changes in a song where every verse changes key twice, but the final verse brings another, incredibly unexpected upward key change not at the conventional place right after the bridge, but rather one-quarter of the way through the last verse (on the crucial word "couples" no less), followed only a few seconds later by another upward key change that was already baked into the middle of every verse at the title phrase, before returning down one key on the last syllable of the phrase "and with their boys tonight" into a vocal/instrumental flourish (which appears nowhere else in the song - but again so skillfully blended in that it can easily go unnoticed unless pointed out) that leads to the outro and fadeout. Last-verse key changes are commonplace, but who else but BW would change the key one-quarter of the way into the third verse, in a song that already has two key changes built into every verse to begin with?

Incredifreakingbrilliant...

So many country songs from the 60s/70s have a modulation. "Coal Miner's Daughter" moves twice, both 1/2 steps.

A minor third step up seems to be more rare, but the Grateful Dead did it in their live version of "Around and Around" when Bob Weir could get up that high.

There's also that weird change in "Right Off" from In A Silent Way, I think it's a tritone change