This song is about loss and the passage of time and how memories are filtered in different phases of life.

Chord progression:
This song deliberately exploits a few quirks of 12 tone equal temperament. First, the fact that two major thirds + 2 major ninths, octave-reduced, lands you back where you started. Second, that 4 minor thirds equates to an octave. The song is structured in such a way that each successive verse is a minor third lower than its predecessor. The chorus is ascending through augmented 4ths in the chord progression, which technically constantly shifts the key signature sharpward, but for the sake of notation I’m using the simplest enharmonic notation. In the first two choruses this cycle completes twice. In the final chorus it repeats an extra half-cycle to land us back in D, where we started. I initially wrote this out completely ignoring enharmonicity and thinking of it in strict harmonic terms, but finding ourselves in the key of B### was just silly so I fixed it.

A note: if this was written in a different 5-limit harmonic framework like 19ed2 that is a prime number instead of a composite number, neither the diaschisma nor diminished comma would be pumped and this would not return to its home key. Instead, each diminished cycle would find itself rising sharper by a diminished second (in 19ed2, this is around 63.16 cents) and each augmented fourth cycle would find itself flattening by a like amount. Fun! I love composite numbers!

Intro: (Key of D)
D -> Eb -> Bb (x3)

D->F->Ab->Cb


Verse 1: (Key of D, technically we’re in C## due to the ascending minor thirds,but enharmonicity is what it is
D -> Eb -> Bb (x8)


Chorus:

Constant modulation upward by augmented fourths, pumping the diaschisma.
(Key of D)
D->f#->C#->C#sus2->G#
(Key of G#)
G#->b#->F##->F##sus2->C## (lol wtf is this)
(Key of C##, I’m kidding we’re in D now but harmonically speaking we’ve risen by the mediant twice and the dominant four times so no flattening here! But whatever
D->f#->C#->C#sus2->G#
(Key of G#)
G#->b#->F##->F##sus2->C##/D

Bridge: (Ascending minor thirds through the diminished scale)
(Key D diminished)
D->F->Ab->Cb->
D->F->Ab->Cb->
D->F->Ab->

Verse 2: (Key of Cb, but let’s call B for the sake of clarity)
B->C->G (x8)

Chorus:
Another round of augmented 4th modulations
(key of B)
B->d->A#->A#sus2->E#
(key of E#)
E#->g->D##->D##sus2->A##/B
(key of B)
B->d->A#->A#sus2->E#
(key of E#)
E#->g->D##->D##sus2->

Bridge: (more ascending minor thirds through diminished scale)
(key: A##/B)
B->D->F->Ab-
Cb/B->D->F->Ab
Cb/B->D->F->

Verse 3: (key of Ab) (oh boy we sure are flat)
Ab->Bbb->Fb

Chorus:
(another upward round of augmented 4ths, pumping that diaschisma a few more times)
(Key Ab)
Ab->c->G->Gsus2->D
(Key D)
D->f#->C#->C#sus2->G#/Ab
(Key Ab)
Ab->c->G->Gsus2->D
(Key D)
D->f#->C#->C#sus2->G#/Ab
(Key Ab)
Ab->c->G->Gsus2->D

(Outro)
(Key of D)
D->Eb->Bb (x3)
D->F->Ab->Cb->Ebb/D