What key is this in?

[mjzee]

I owned Ruben & The Jets since my teenage years.  But listening to it with adult ears, on the Greasy Love Songs CD, I was struck by how strange so many of these songs are.

One song I've recently been obsessed with is "How Could I Be Such A Fool."  What key is this in?

 

[JSngry]

My Tonette is calling it Db.

Of more interest to me is how the original is in 3 (or 6, if you prefer), but for Reuben they put in 4 (or 8). That really fucked me up the first few times hearing it.

Also, fwiw, I think this - the original - might be the one(?) time that Zappa really let out his pain w/o irony or snark.

[mjzee]

27 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Also, fwiw, I think this - the original - might be the one(?) time that Zappa really let out his pain w/o irony or snark.

I agree with you.  Some of the lyrics are actually poetic: "I know now that you never really loved me; it hurts me now to think you never really cared...how could I be taken in by your sweet face..you'll regret the way you treated me, as if I was a fool and didn't know..."

But musically, and with the arrangement, the Ruben & The Jets track is really something else.  The reason I asked about the key is it reminded me of some of those "Beatles in minor keys" tracks that appeared on YouTube a few years ago.  The key change transformed those tracks, and made them sound sinister and haunting.

[JSngry]

It's the same changes, believe it or not. The change in the meter is what makes it weird, especially for the "how could I be such a fool" section". For that, the melody get tweaked to pull it deep into the vampchugging that's going on underneath. But the changes themselves...still the same.