We Need To Talk Talk About This Chord Progression...

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]This video is sponsored by Mindful Harmony. Whether it's the 2003 hit cover version by No Doubt or the original 1984 version by Talk Talk, you're probably familiar with this song, It's My Life.

[00:00:17][music] >> Well, you've probably never realized how complex this song is, how weird it is.

[00:00:25]The verse and chorus are in really distantly related keys, and they pivot between these two key centers using chromatic medians. The thing about this song is that each section taken on their own doesn't have a particularly [music] weird chord progression, but the way that these different chord progressions interact with each other is weird. So, what chord progressions do we have?

[00:00:46]Well, the verse [music] starts like this. E flat and then B flat minor 7 over F.

[00:00:54]A flat [music] love.

[00:01:05]>> So that's the one chord and then basically a fancy version of the two chord and the four chord.

[00:01:19][music and singing] >> That's the verse.

[00:01:22]nice core progression in what we call the mixelyian mode. But if that was the whole song, I wouldn't be making this video. It's what happens next that gets things interesting. So that's the verse in the key of E flat. Now let's look at the chord progression we get in the chorus.

[00:01:42][music] So that's kind of the pre chorus bit which goes A minor, D minor, G, [music] C, and F.

[00:01:51]>> [singing] >> And then the main chorus goes A minor, [music] D minor, G, and C.

[00:02:00]>> Don't you forget. [music] >> So once again, [music] we have what is a fairly typical chord progression. Here in the key of A minor, we have 1 4 7 3.

[00:02:18][music] in the key of A minor. Nothing to write home about really. But the way that that chord progression in a minor interacts with the verses core progression in E flat is really weird because E flat and A are a tritone away from each other.

[00:02:38][music] And a tritone is the furthest you can get away from any note before you start coming back on yourself. If you have an octave like E flat to E flat, the note that is [music] equidistant between the two, it's going to be that trionee. And we can also see that on the circle of fifths, the note that's the other side, the opposite side on the circle of fifths to E flat, for example, is A [music] because it's a tri-onee away. And on the circle of fifths, closely related keys, keys that have lots of notes in common are neighboring that key are next to it. and keys that are not closely related, keys that have very few notes in common are away are on the other side. So basically what I'm saying is that E flat and A minor, the two keys we have here for the verse and the chorus are basically as far away as you can get from each other before you start coming back on yourself. So how do talk make this work?

[00:03:32]Well, let's have a look. There's one chord they use, a chord we can call an nharmonic pivot chord that marries these two sections together. Let's see it in action. So, let's go back to the verse.

[00:03:43]E flat, B flat minor 7 over F and A flat.

[00:03:49][music] And it goes around this a few times, right? This is the basis of the verse. [singing] >> But then eventually [music] we get this. So we go normal chords into a flat chord and here comes [music and singing] E major and that takes us to >> the chorus in a minor. [music] That one chord has shifted us from one to the other.

[00:04:25][music] >> [music] >> Now, those watching who know a bit about music theory will be saying, "Well, David, using an E chord to modulate to the key of A minor is not weird at all.

[00:04:48]That is actually the most textbook way you could change key. The most textbook and bulk standard way to change to any key is to use the five chord of the destination key. So if your destination is A, [music] to get there, you just want the chord that's five away up the scale, the fifth chord, [music] which is E. E is basically born to take us back to A. So why am I saying this is weird?

[00:05:16]This is how we're getting to A minor, right? We're going to A minor, the very standard way of [music] going through E.

[00:05:21]Well, it's weird because of the purpose, the function that E is serving in the context of the verse. Because when we first hear that E chord, right, we're not hearing it as the five chord of A minor. We're hearing it in the context of E flat. So we're in the key of E flat [music] and then [music] we suddenly get E chord which is the flat two chord. This is an example of what we can call a chromatic medant relationship. If we look at it in context, right? E flat [music] then this chord and then the A flat chord. We're going from the A flat chord at the end of the verse to the E major chord.

[00:06:09]You'll notice that that is a really smooth change.

[00:06:16]The top note, [music] the G sharp or A flat, depending on which side of the key change you're on, stays exactly where it is. It's just the other two notes that spread out. The C moves down to B one semmit tone and the [music] E flat moves up to E one semmit tone. Again, this is an example of what we could call a chromatic medant. I have a whole video about them as well, but chromatic medians are basically chords [music] that are not related in any given key, but they have a relation with each other thanks to having a shared note. In this case, that G sharp or A flat.

[00:06:52]Chromatic medians are chords that are a third apart from each other. So, for example, here G [music] sharp and E, that's a third, right?

[00:06:59]It's kind of masked by the fact we're calling it an A flat chord, but it is a G sharp. [music] And they're both the same quality as well. So, they're major as well. So, that's a chromatic medant, a third apart in the root and the same function, major and major. And that gives us two chords that are far away from each other, but have that shared [music] link. And that can be enough to give us what we need to bridge these two very distant keys. The circle of fifths is a really useful way to understand chord progressions because it gives a insight into how each chord is related, how closely or distantly they are related.

[00:07:34]And this is exactly how Mindful Harmony, today's sponsor, makes writing chord progressions easier. Mindful Harmony is a great tool for writing core progressions that sound [music] natural and interesting because it's using music theory to inform the core progression in an intuitive way. Mindful Harmony lays out the options almost like a menu, helping you draw from chords and ideas that maybe you wouldn't have naturally gone to, helping you think outside the box and write something new and original. Mindful Harmony are having their spring sale right now, and you can try out with a 5-day free trial. No credit card required. So, I really suggest checking out this great tool for coming up with chord progressions in an intuitive, but also music theorydriven way. Links down below in the description. Thank you, Mindful Harmony.

[00:08:16]And now let's get back to the interesting harmony of talk to it's my life. So that's how we get from verse to chorus. But of course we get another verse after the chorus. So how do we move back from the chorus key of a minor into the versus key of E flat? Well, once again via a chromatic medium.

[00:08:45]>> [music] >> So the chorus is doing this right [music] in a minor.

[00:08:56]Keeps going around.

[00:08:59]And eventually when we want to go back to the verse, we [music] get this chord F minor, [music] which takes us back to E flat.

[00:09:12]which is the verse. Right?

[00:09:16]So here the pivot chord [music] is F minor. How does that function in this key? Well, once again F minor doesn't make an awful lot of sense in the [music] previous key, but makes a lot of sense in the destination key. And that's how you want your pivot chords to work. You want the pivot chord to make a lot of sense in the destination because that's where we're about to hear it.

[00:09:37]We're about to go there. We want our ears to go there. So we want to reduce the friction by giving us a chord that makes a lot of sense there. So F minor in the key of E flat is just the two chord, right? Just [music] naturally takes us there. Makes a lot of sense.

[00:09:51]But F minor in the key of A minor, which is where we were, [music] it's quite a weird sound, but it's once again a chromatic median. These two chords, A minor and F minor, are related by a third in the root. So A and F, [music] that's a third, a major third.

[00:10:11]And they're the same quality this time, both [music] minor. So these are once again chromatic medians, chords that are chromatically [music] very far away from each other, but have that one note in common, this time C, which can marry [music] them together against the odds. So both times here, going from verse to chorus and chorus to verse, we've used a chromatic medant to bridge that gulf between the two keys. A couple weeks back, I released a video on what I call pedal chords. And it [music] occurred to me that I could use pedal chords to create a cool cover version of It's My Life.

[00:10:50]>> If you want to watch it in full, then [singing] use the link down below to check it out on my second channel, or you can stream it on services like Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Heat. Heat.

[00:11:00][music] [music] >> [music]