Hmm, what's the key of this song?

[CyberGene]

There's this Bulgarian song from my youth, I think it was released in the early 90-s, kind of cheesy but I loved it at the time

 

 

 

The chords are pretty obvious:

 

Intro:

Fm7 Eb/G Abmaj7 Bbsus Cmaj7

Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Cm7/9 Gm7/9
 

Then it starts in what to me sounds like a tonal centre of Cm:

 

Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Bb F Eb Bb F Eb Bb G7sus G7 (2x) - well, somehow the F sounds like a dominant and the Eb like a sub-dominant, so, well, maybe it's in Bb after all and not in Cm?

 

Then after the second repeat the final two chords are G7sus G7 which should be a modulation to Cm after all, because the following chords are pretty much Cm (or Eb) sounding:

 

Fm7 Ab Cm Bb Ab Eb Bb Fm Ab Cm Bb Ab Eb G7sus G7 and it seems like this is firm Cm but it starts again from the first section above which is Cm7/9 but is that a tonic or is it the ii chord in the Bb 😀

 

It's a bit vague and I still don't know what is happening. I'm usually pretty good with stuff like theory and these things but it eludes me this time. I'd say it modulates between the two keys and because they have a lot of overlaps, it creates vagueness but I'm not really sure. The Cm7/9 chords really sound stable and tonic-y, only for it to go left.

 

 

 

 

[AROIOS]

20 hours ago, CyberGene said:

There's this Bulgarian song from my youth, I think it was released in the early 90-s, kind of cheesy but I loved it at the time

 

 

 

The chords are pretty obvious:

 

Intro:

Fm7 Eb/G Abmaj7 Bbsus Cmaj7

Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Cm7/9 Gm7/9
 

Then it starts in what to me sounds like a tonal centre of Cm:

 

Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Cm7/9 Gm7/9 Bb F Eb Bb F Eb Bb G7sus G7 (2x) - well, somehow the F sounds like a dominant and the Eb like a sub-dominant, so, well, maybe it's in Bb after all and not in Cm?

 

Then after the second repeat the final two chords are G7sus G7 which should be a modulation to Cm after all, because the following chords are pretty much Cm (or Eb) sounding:

 

Fm7 Ab Cm Bb Ab Eb Bb Fm Ab Cm Bb Ab Eb G7sus G7 and it seems like this is firm Cm but it starts again from the first section above which is Cm7/9 but is that a tonic or is it the ii chord in the Bb 😀

 

It's a bit vague and I still don't know what is happening. I'm usually pretty good with stuff like theory and these things but it eludes me this time. I'd say it modulates between the two keys and because they have a lot of overlaps, it creates vagueness but I'm not really sure. The Cm7/9 chords really sound stable and tonic-y, only for it to go left.

 

 

 

 

The intro is in Eb, the move at the end of the intro from Bb9sus to C is a very common 80's technique to modulate the key center 3 steps down (the relative minor becomes the new major tonal center). The arranger's decision to immediately move from C back to Cm in the verse, feels like a wasted opportunity for me.

The verse modulates between Cm and Eb, then moves one step up to Dbm at the end.

Bb - F and Fm7 - Ab are simply V - II  and IIm7 - IV in Eb. You can add a b7 to the F, making it an II7, and it'll still sound legit.

These types of progressions were extremely common in old school Pop. No need to over-analyze them.