Tritone substitution – Example 1 – Alfie

Tritone Substitution: The substitution of a major-minor 7th chord whose root is a tritone away from the dominant for the dominant 7th chord.

Alfie (1965) by Burt Bacharach (1928-2023) and Hal David (1921-2012)

The song Alfie has examples of tritone substitutions in it. This song was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the 1966 movie of the same name. The song was sung by Dionne Warwick and can be heard below:

The chords for the last part of the song (m. 20-end) can be seen below:

Analysis

The song is mostly in the key of C. The analysis for the chords in the key is shown below. The chords highlighted in the shaded boxes should not be analyzed in the key of C.

The chords in the boxes are shown below:

These three chords should be thought of in the key of E minor. In the key of E minor the first chord is a iiø7 and the last chord is a i7.

Between the iiø7 and the i7 chord, we would expect to have a V7 chord to fill in the down a fifth progression, as seen below:

In the song Alfie, instead of the expected V7 (B7) chord, we find a bII7 (F7) chord. The F7 chord, a dominant seventh chord whose root is a tritone away from the V7 in the key of E minor, B7, is an example of a tritone substitution. Therefore, this progression should be anlayzed as:

The analysis of these chords, in the context of the piece, can be seen below. Since the iiø7 and TT sub are in the key of E minor, they are placed in parentheses to show the belong together in the key of the next chord – the E minor.