What Is This Thing Called Love? Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–8

Gm7b5 | C7 | Fm6 | Fm6 | Dm7b5 | G7 | Cmaj7 | Cmaj7

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1929 and is old enough that it is very likely in the public domain in the United States, which is why the excerpt runs longer here — but copyright status varies by territory and by edition, so treat that as context, not as legal advice.

The books behind this page

Every one of these tunes is assembled out of the same handful of harmonic resources. Jazz Harmony is those resources, explained in the order in which they build on each other.

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Harmonic analysis

Key

C major

Tonal center

C

Confidence

Medium

Chords analysed

8

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Gm7b5	iiø	Predominant	Gm7b5 is the iiø7 of Fm: the predominant of a minor key.	High
C7	V7	Dominant	C7 is the dominant of Fm. In a minor key it borrows its major third from harmonic minor — that raised note is the leading tone.	High
Fm6	i	Tonic	Fm6 is the tonic of Fm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fm6	i	Tonic	Fm6 is the tonic of Fm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Dm7b5	iiø	Predominant	Dm7b5 is a iiø7 in a major key — borrowed from the parallel minor. It darkens the approach to the dominant.	Medium
G7	V7	Dominant	G7 is the dominant of C. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Cmaj7	I	Tonic	Cmaj7 is the tonic of C. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Cmaj7	I	Tonic	Cmaj7 is the tonic of C. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ModulationF minor

Bars 1-4 are heard in F minor: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

iiø - V7 - iGm7b5 - C7 - Fm6

A complete minor ii-V-i in Fm, with the half-diminished ii and a dominant that borrows its leading tone from harmonic minor.

iiø - V7 - IDm7b5 - G7 - Cmaj7

A complete ii-V-I in C. Predominant, dominant, tonic: the sentence jazz harmony is built out of.

High, medium and low next to each numeral are judgements about musical context, not probabilities. A low rating marks a bar that can honestly be read more than one way. How the ratings are decided →

Why this example matters

In C major the excerpt reads iiø – V7 – i – I. Inside those 8 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and a chord borrowed from the parallel mode. Play it slowly with only two voices — the third and seventh of each chord. In C7 those are E and Bb, and watching where that pair goes next tells you more about the progression than the root movement does. The same device turns up in Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What, in other keys and at other tempos.

How the rest of What Is This Thing Called Love? goes

The opening is the famous part: the tune begins on a half-diminished chord borrowed from the minor, followed by a dominant, and only then reveals what key it is in. Starting a major-key song on a borrowed minor-key sonority was striking in 1929 and still gives the piece its question-mark quality — the harmony genuinely does not tell you where you are for two bars. The rest of the form is conventional by comparison, which is deliberate: the device only works once.

What Is This Thing Called Love? on record

Cole Porter wrote it in 1929 for the musical Wake Up and Dream. Its changes have been borrowed repeatedly — Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House” is the best-known contrafact on them, and the pairing is a standard illustration of how bebop composers chose their source material: they wanted harmony with a built-in complication, and this tune has one in its first bar.

Analyze this progression

Take these bars into the analyzer and interfere with them. The fastest way to learn what a chord was doing is to remove it and read what the analysis says instead.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

What Is This Thing Called Love? — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

Jazz Guitar Comping

Harmonic analysis

What the analyzer found in it

Why this example matters

How the rest of What Is This Thing Called Love? goes

What Is This Thing Called Love? on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Modal interchange

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions