Realize It's Not The Sun opens True Loves as a drum-and-choir wall in E flat. The chords lean on the flat seven, D flat, the Mixolydian borrow this band keeps reaching for, and the same seven notes also spell A flat major, so the ear hangs between the two until the bass votes. The bass waits out the first seventy seconds, walks in on G flat and F, then rocks D flat to E flat under the last chorus until the song drains to a bare E flat pedal.
Realize It's Not The Sun · Hooray For Earth
Eb major · verse · the scale walked down from the fifth to the borrowed flat seven
The verse rests on Db (bVII) moving to Eb (I), the flat-seven chord resolving up a whole step to home.
The melody walks straight down the scale, Bb, Ab, G, F, Eb, Db, the fifth falling stepwise to the flat seven.
The G rings over the Db chord as a sharp eleven, the Lydian color, and it is the major third of the home key, so the descent stays bright on the way down.
The Db at the bottom is the borrowed note, the same flat seven the chords are built on.
Drums and pads carry everything here, and the bass stem is silent, so the bass staff rests.
One line of melody covers the harmonic idea of the whole song, a flat seven living inside a major key.
favorite momentThe Bb to Db descent under battle for you too, the fifth sliding all the way down to the borrowed flat seven.
Chords from stem chroma (guitar, other, piano stems, 8-second windows). Melody is a pyin read of the isolated vocal stem at 0:40 to 0:47. Lyric fragment from the whisper transcription of the vocal stem, wording approximate. The bass stem shows no output until 1:12 at two detection thresholds, so the staff is marked tacet.
Eb major · chorus · bVIImaj7 into vi7 into I, the melody parked on a color tone
The chorus opens on Dbmaj7 (bVIImaj7), the borrowed chord dressed with a major seventh, and the stems ring C, F, Ab, Db together.
It falls to Cm7 (vi7) and comes to rest on Eb (I).
The hook rises Db to a held Eb on feel, a full second parked on the tonic note over moving chords.
Then it falls Db to C, the major seventh of the Db chord, and the harmony slides to C minor right behind it, catching the note as its root.
The second phrase repeats Bb, steps down through Ab and G, and parks on a long F.
That F is the eleventh over Cm7 and the ninth over Eb, a color tone either way the chord is read.
The bass is still out, so the staff rests, and the whole chorus floats on pads and voices.
favorite momentThe long F under we were dead, the ninth hanging over the Eb chord with no bass underneath to settle it.
Chords from stem chroma: the 48-second window rings C, F, Db, Ab (Dbmaj7), the 56-second window rings Eb, C, Bb (Cm7 and Eb). Melody is a pyin read of the vocal stem at 0:55 to 1:04. Lyric fragments from the whisper transcription, wording approximate. Bass tacet, verified at two thresholds.
Eb major · final chorus · bass enters at last, Db to Eb under the wall
The last chorus is where the low end finally shows up.
The bass rocks Db (bVII) to Eb (I) in whole bars, the flat-seven seesaw under the massed voices.
It walked in at 1:12 on Gb and F, the flat third and the second, two notes outside the Eb chord that slide into place as the pattern settles.
The voices stack into a wall and sing the scale down through the octave, C, Bb, Ab, F, Eb, Db, C.
The stretch from 1:30 to 2:00 is the densest vocal passage in the song, and more than a third of it holds on Eb.
At 2:24 everything drains to a bare Eb pedal, 87 percent of the harmonic energy on one note.
The song opens as drums and choir and ends on a single pitch.
favorite momentThe bass walking in at 1:12 on Gb and F after seventy seconds of silence, two crooked notes that resolve into the Db to Eb rock of the ending.
Bass roots from autocorrelation tracking of the bass stem: Gb and F alternate from 1:12 to 1:32, then Db and Eb trade to the end. The massed-voice staff shows the octave descent the wall of voices sings; the words under it are the transcript line from 1:46, wording approximate. The closing window at 2:24 measures 87 percent Eb across the harmonic stems.