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around the immediate appeal of a repeated chorus, so by shifting the chorus into a new key it can be repeated with a
sense of the familiar somehow freshened.
This has tended to be done in two main ways. One is brutally direct: shift up a semitone (half-step).
Although C major and C#major are only a semitone apart, this is a shift to a distant key. What was a scale of seven
natural notes (C D E F G A B C) has become a scale of seven sharps (C# D# E# F# G# A# B#). The chord change
from G to C# is inelegant, and usually only the speed of the change and the brio of the arrangement will disguise the
dissonance. Even so, the ear accepts the semitone shift as a small step in pitch. And because all the musical material
- the melody, the words, the chords, the rhythm, the parts – remain the same, this is enough to make it acceptable.
This key change is an act of musical bravura rather than an approach that is musically smooth. If C is the last chord
of the sequence, chord I of C major merely slides up to chord I of C#major. If the sequence ends on chord V, G, that
could slide to G#(7) for a V-I into the new key. The problem is that the two keys have no chords in common.
Another approach might be via the IIImaj chord and a temporary modulation to A major:
Here's another way of doing it:
Here are some songs that use a semitone shift: 'I Try' D-Eb, 'Glad All Over' D-Eb v, 'Baby Love' v, 'The Onion Song'
Ab-A, 'Heaven Help Us All' Ab-A, 'I Got You Babe' F-F#, 'Always Something There To Remind Me' Ab-A, 'Silence
Is Golden', 'Harlem Shuffle' Am-Bbm, 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' v Eb ch D, 'The Happening', 'Farewell Is A
Lonely Sound', 'For Once In My Life', and 'C' mon C'mon C'mon' (C#m-Dm).
'And I Love Her' starts in F#m (or E), goes to Gm (F) and ends on a D. This is reached by a sudden dislocating leap
from E to Gm at the guitar solo. 'I Get Around' starts in G, moves to A for the guitar solo and then to Ab for the last
verse and chorus. 'My Cherie Amour' moves from Db to D on a swooning "maybe some day". In 'You Keep Me
Hanging On', the home key of Ab contrasts with B and F#. 'I'll Pick A Rose For My Rose' goes from Bb to B to C
and does this shift twice. The change from A to Bb in 'Shake Me Wake Me' only serves to pitch Levi Stubbs's
agonised vocals to a higher degree of eye-watering anguish.
By the mid-1960s Holland-Dozier-Holland were often willing to exploit the semi-tone shift to dizzy extremes. 'I
Guess I'll Always Love You' starts in C but near the end it suddenly shifts up to Db and after only one hook moves
up again