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What key is "Stop! In the Name of Love" in?


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The chorus is actually in A minor - kind of - and the verse is in the relative major © - but there are some interesting chromatic chords.

 

VERSE:

|C - - - |Cmaj7 - - - |Gm6 - - - |A7 - - - |

|F - - - |G - - - |F - - - |G - - - |

|C - - - |G/B - - - |F - - - |Fm - - - |

|C - F/C - |C - - - |C - F/C - |C - - - |

 

CHORUS

|Am - - - |G/B - - - |F - - - |G - - - |

|Am - - - |G/B - - - |F - - - |G - - - |

|C - F/C - |C - - - |C - F/C - |C - - - |

 

The Gm6 is kind of like a C7 (which would be a natural progression from C and Cmaj7), and also the same notes as Em7b5, which a jazz player would see as a natural precursor to A7. The bass plays G, tho, which is why I'm calling it Gm6 ;).

 

The A7 is a "secondary dominant", setting up (along with the preceding Gm6) a change to Dm. (Gm and A7 both belong to the key of D minor, and this would be a standard way to set up a key change to D minor.)

However, there is a "deceptive cadence", because instead of Dm we get F. The F and G (repeated) clearly re-establish the home key of C major.

 

Bars 9-12 sound like they are going to repeat bars 1-4, but instead it heads for F sooner, via a G/B. That's followed by Fm - a pretty common alteration to a IV chord. (And its momentary darkening effect suits the lyric "alone and hurt", of course. These guys knew what they were doing...)

 

You could argue the chorus isn't really "in A minor" at all - it just starts with the vi chord of C major, and everything else there is C major key. (We'd need to see an E7 chord and/or a Dm for this to feel like the real A minor key.) Hitting that Am - on the word "Stop!" of course - is really just a dramatic device. It's quite unusual for a verse to be in a major key while the chorus is in relative minor (more common for it to be the other way round). But all they need for the required effect is the Am chord - they can get back to C major after that.

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