Pulling Back is a 40-second interlude, not a full song. The bass sits on E for 65% of every voiced frame. The vocal parks on Bb and Eb, notes that do not belong to any diatonic mode built on E. The whole track is a semitone rub between the bass pedal and the vocal ceiling.
Pulling Back · Hooray For Earth
40 seconds · 172 BPM · Krumhansl confidence 0.374 (too short for a stable key read)
Only 240 voiced vocal frames and 154 voiced bass frames exist across the entire track. Krumhansl returned G major at 0.374 confidence, well below every other True Loves song this session (Sails 0.674, No Love 0.860). At this length the tempo and pedal register more clearly than any tonal center. Treat this as a texture piece, not a tonal song.
favorite momentThe confidence itself. Krumhansl saying 'I don't know' is the most honest read a short piece gets.
Bass sits on E for 64.9% of every voiced frame · a hard pedal
Bass histogram over the 40 seconds: E 64.9%, C# 11.7%, B 7.8%, G 6.5%. This is the strongest bass pedal measured across True Loves so far, close to two thirds of the piece on one note. The next closest is Hotel's F at 31.7%. Pulling Back doubles that concentration on a single bass root. In track order the piece sits between No Love and Black Trees, so it functions as a bass-anchored transition.
favorite moment64.9% single-note bass. Pulling Back does not have a chord progression so much as a pedal with weather passing over it.
Vocal parks on Bb and Eb · notes that do not belong on the E bass
Vocal histogram: Bb 24.6%, Eb 23.3%, A 15.8%, E 15.0%, B 12.5%. Bb and Eb are the top two vocal notes. On top of a bass E pedal, Bb is the b5 (the tritone) and Eb is the m2 above E's octave-below Eb. Neither note lives in E major, E minor, E Mixolydian, E Dorian, or E Phrygian. The vocal is not tonally aligned with the pedal at all. Bb over E is the interval that defines the diminished sound; Eb over E is the direct semitone rub. The whole interlude is written on that rub. The A (15.8%) is the one anchor note that fits E naturally (the 4th), giving a moment of relief.
favorite momentVocal Bb over bass E. The tritone as a texture, not a passing tone.