RE: Fwd: RE: [Harp-L] MISS YOU--what key?



From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>

Listening to the chords on a clip of the Stones' version, I hear the
main riff being sung over an A minor chord, landing (then vamping) on
D minor, which has a feeling of finality and rest.

This tells me that the tune is in D minor, despite everyone saying
it's in A.


Winslow,


I can understand why you might come to this conclusion, but I gotta disagree, especially with your contention that the D minor chord has a feeling of finality.

When I play guitar on this song, after vamping on it for a long time, I feel that if you tried to end the song on the D minor, it was not have a feeling of finality. That would only come from the Am.

Ask a guitarist friend to try the following: after vamping on the main riff, have the guitarist play a shortened version of the riff by playing G - A - D - C - A - G - A, cutting the last note short, and then playing an ending crescendo chord using Am one time and Dm another time. (This, in fact, is how my band and I end the song since the original version on Some Girls fades out at the end).

Tell me which sounds final to you then, the Am or the Dm?

Also, in the bridge section, the chords are

F - Em - Dm
F - Em - Dm
Em

Note the Em, which here is acting as a V chord to resolve back to the root I chord of Am.

Sugar Blue himself claims that he plays the song in second position.

I haven't heard the extended version in a long time. But Sugar Blues also does a version of Miss You on his Blue Blazes CD, again with a fade-out ending so no "resolution" of the question you raise here. But again looking at all the chords used in the song and their functions, we'd have:


                Am   Dm  Em  F
Key of Am    I      IV    V   vi
Key of Dm   V       I     ii    iii

While the song is very modal in feeling, nevertheless, harmonically the chords function more traditionally in the key of Am than Dm, esp. the V - I movement I mentioned before.

Finally if Suger Blues says he plays the song in 2nd position, and we all seem to agree that he's using a D harp, then I'm inclinded to go along with the man who made the song what it is. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck. (smile)

So, over here in NJ, my band and I will continue to play the song as if it's in Am, because it works for us. And we've played this song in many different types of venues, from high-end clubs to biker bars, and it always goes over great.

Good talkin' to ya.

Jimbeau

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