Can someone explain the theory behind the changes in Superstition by Stevie Wonder?

Question

I'm learning Stevie Wonder's Superstition on guitar (an awesome song) and I'm really curious about the theory behind the changes in the chorus. The intro and verse are just a riff in E minor pentatonic. From the chord charts I've seen that's sometimes shown as over E7#9 and other times over Em7. Then the chorus is ... 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 B7 C7#11 B7 Bb7#11 A7 B7#9 ... before returning to the next verse riff on E7#9. Can someone help me to understand that chord sequence in the chorus from a music theory point of view? Thanks.

Answer 1

Superstition is basically an altered 12-bar blues structure. It's actually stretched out to being 24 bars, twice as long, but the ratio is still the same. The song is really in Eb, but to simplify the progression (without all the extensions), let's say it's in E, with E being the I chord (tonic), and B and A being the V and IV chords (dominant and subdominant). The C7 chord is an upper neighbor to the B chord, with the Bb being a passing chord between the B and A. But if you look at the roman numerals of a blues progression, the dominant to subdominant chords happen right where they should . The main alteration to the form is that it says on the tonic chord where it would usually move to the IV chord, in measures 5-6, or in this 24-bar form, 9-12. But if you check out "Money" by Pink Floyd, it does the same thing, staying on the tonic where it would usually change to IV. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Hi there, I think I can help answer your question.

Keep in mind while analyzing Stevie Wonder songs that he is an incredible musician and composer and often does very interesting things in terms of music theory in his songs. This particular progression has such an interesting sound to it because of the chromatic (half-step) movement. First lets go through the notes and chords of E minor.

E minor scale - E F# G A B C D (E)

Chords in E minor - E-7 F#-7b5 Gmaj7 A-7 B-7 Cmaj7 D7

Roman Numeral chords- I-7 II-7b5 IIImaj7 IV-7 V-7 VImaj7 VII7

SHORT ANSWER: V7 VI7#11 V7 bV7#11 IV7 V7#9 then back to I7#9

LONG ANSWER/EXPLANATION: The first chord of that sequence is B7 which would be our V7 chord. If you notice above, the V chord in a minor scale is actually a minor 7 chord, but because the V is used so often to build tension and create powerful chord progressions, it is more often than not substituted with a dominant 7.

Now, there is more than one way to analyze this progression, but the simplest way to look at this progression is from a chromatic point of view. He is taking the V7 chord and moving it by half-steps to create and draw out the tension of the chorus, making the the hook "superstition ain't the way" even more satisfying than if you just stayed on the V7 that whole time.

In terms of analyzation, B7 is our V7 chord, C7 is our VI7#11 chord (substituted for VImaj7), B7 our V7 again, Bb7#11 which is out of our scale would be a bV7#11 chord, A7 is our IV7 chord (substituted for IV-7) then a whole step up back to B7 our V7 chord to end the chord and return us back to E our I chord.

If you are thinking "wow, the dominant 7 chord can just be substituted so often like that?", then the answer is yes, yes it can. Dominant 7 chords are somewhat in a category of their own. They are used often in all styles of music as a way to change the sound of the original key temporarily by substituting for diatonic chords. Also, it is very common to keep the chord quality the same (in this case, dominant 7) when moving chromatically (by half-steps).

I really hope that helps, let me know if you have any questions!

-Nic