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Related Music Theory Alchemy

“Can You Feel The Love Tonight” by Elton John is a heart-touching love song that carries a smooth flowing blend of pop and soft rock, showing Elton John’s inclination to use diatonic (major and minor) chords, 7th chords and inversions. The song, largely stays in its home key of C major, has an interesting chord progression that shifts between the tonic, subdominant, and dominant. Internally, there are multiple secondary dominant chords and borrowing from the parallel minor, providing color and contrast.

This chord progression is in the key of C Major, but incorporates a variety of borrowed chords and slash chords that add complexity and color to the song. It’s a good example of how Elton John takes popularly-used chord progressions and puts his own unique spin on them.

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‘Set Fire to the Rain’ is written in the key of D minor. The main course of progression uses the chords of Dm, B-flat Major, F Major and C Major. This is a 6-4-1-5 progression, which is very popular and is used in a lot of pop music.

What makes this progression interesting is that Adele uses the 2nd inversion of the A minor chord, Am/B, and G/A, which gives it a unique timbre. `Am/B` is the 2nd inversion of the `Am` chord and `G/A` is the 2nd inversion of the `G` chord.

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The chorus of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” features an unconventional and diverse chord progression, drawing from various scale degrees. This progression contributes to the song’s complex, shifting quality, moving through several tonal centers.

“Heartbreaker” by The Rolling Stones is a rock song that exhibits some fundamental rock and blues progressions and chord changes. The chorus of the song is a three-chord progression [E, G, C] that repeats four times.

Elton John – Can You Feel The Love Tonight – Chorus

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Chord Progression

[‘G’, ‘D/F#’, ‘Em’, ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘G/B’, ‘Em’, ‘G/D’, ‘C’, ‘Am’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘G’, ‘D/F#’, ‘Em’, ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘G/B’, ‘Em’, ‘G/D’, ‘C’, ‘Am’, ‘G’, ‘C/D’, ‘C/G’, ‘G’]

Chord Progression Analysis

Here’s the Roman numeral analysis of the listed chord progression, and their full chord names:

“`
G (I)
D/F# (V6)
Em (vi)
C (IV)
G (I)
C (IV)
A/C# (♭II6, borrowed chord)
D (V)
C (IV)
G/B (I6)
Em (vi)
G/D (I6/4)
C(IV)
Am (ii)
G (I)
C (IV)
A/C# (♭II6 , borrowed chord)
D (V)
G (I)
D/F# (V6)
Em (vi)
C (IV)
G (I)
C (IV)
A/C# (♭II6, borrowed chord)
D (V)
C (IV)
G/B (I6)
Em (vi)
G/D (I6/4)
C (IV)
Am (ii)
G (I)
C/D (IV6/4)
C/G (IV6/4)
G (I)
“`

The line beginning with ‘G’, ‘D/F’ and so on is your original list of chords.

Similar Chord Progressions

1) The song “Let it Be” by The Beatles exhibits a similar chord progression, primarily using the I-IV-V (G-C-D in its case) with the sparing use of vi (Em) and ii (Am). Their original progression: [‘G’, ‘D’, ‘Em’, ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘D’]

2) The song “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals follows the I-IV (Am-C) progression while occasionally using the V (E) and borrowing a D (ii) from G major. The original progression is [‘Am’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘F’, ‘Am’, ‘E’, ‘Am’].

Note that these are not exact matches, but they share similar elements with the progression in “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. The borrowed chord and inversions utilized by Elton John distinguishes his song from these examples, thus further expressing his unique style.

Musical Analysis

This song is built largely upon the I-IV-V-vi-ii progressions, traditional in many pop songs. The A/C# chord is borrowed, likely from D Major’s chords as it is the fifth of D. This borrowed chord adds a unique flare to the standard pop ballad progression, adding a sense of leading towards the ‘D’ chord. The inclusion of inversions, chords whose root notes are not the lowest note of the chord, further adds to the uniqueness of the song.

Overall Analysis

“Can You Feel The Love Tonight” is a pop ballad written in the key of G major. The progression makes traditional use of the G major chord scale with a notable exception of a borrowed chord A/C#.

Style Analysis

Pop ballads like this tend to lean heavily on emotionally evocative melodies and chord progressions, and Elton John, with his characteristic blend of pop and classical elements, makes full use of these techniques. The chord progression is smooth, with seamless transitions between chords enabling Elton John’s famous melodic style to shine through.

Chords in the Chorus section of Can You Feel The Love Tonight by Elton John are:

[‘G’, ‘D/F#’, ‘Em’, ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘G/B’, ‘Em’, ‘G/D’, ‘C’, ‘Am’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘G’, ‘D/F#’, ‘Em’, ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘A/C#’, ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘G/B’, ‘Em’, ‘G/D’, ‘C’, ‘Am’, ‘G’, ‘C/D’, ‘C/G’, ‘G’]