Truck Driver's Gear Change

Y'all dumb motherfuckers want a key change?!

"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun
And the truck changing gears was just music to our ears"
"Goodbye papa, it's hard to die
Three semitones means singing way too high..."

— A conversation on Facebook parodying "Seasons in the Sun"

The Truck Driver's Gear Change is a modulation near the end of a song, shifting upwards by some relatively small pitch increment — usually by one semitone (half step) or whole tone (whole step), but occasionally by other intervals. It is so widespread in popular music that the term "modulation" is sometimes considered synonymous with it, despite technically having a broader meaning. It typically occurs after a chorus or as part of a bridge and is followed by a repeat of the chorus and often a Fade Out.

The term Truck Driver's Gear Change was apparently coined by this site, which compares the technique to a tired, overworked truck driver performing an unartistic, mechanical function. It's becoming something of a Discredited Trope these days, although it still shows up with some frequency in certain genres.

The Truck Driver's Gear Change is most often associated with uplifting ballads and many songs by Vocaloid producers.

Older tropes include:

• Verse (or A-section) in a minor key, chorus (or B-section) in the relative major key (or vice-versa).
• Switching between tonic and dominant for the various parts of the piece (common in music from the 18th century to about 1950, and therefore in earlier, jazz-oriented pop songs)

Please note that this is not a trope about modulation in general - that has its own page. This is about "shifting gears" for dramatic effect or to increase the effective vocal range of a song: sliding up a half or whole step and remaining there for the rest of the song.

Compare Last Chorus Slow-Down.

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Examples:

Straight:

Advertising

• The jingle from Brazilian soft drink Dolly Guaraná (best known by its version sung by their infamous mascot Dollynho) has a key change when the first verse is repeated, but then changes to the original key for the rest of the song.

Anime

• Sailor Moon: Tuxedo Mask's Image Song, "Dakishimete Itai", modulates up from E major to F major for the final chorus.

Asian Animation

• The theme song for Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Mighty Little Defenders, "Marching Bravely", pitch-shifts from an E note to an F note.

Fan Works

• Delta Brony's "Magic Duel", inspired by the episode of the same name, modulates up a whole tone for its last melodic cycle.
• SlyphStorm's Pegasus Device, based on the sequel to the Dark Fic Rainbow Factory, modulates from F♯ minor to G minor at start of the second bridge.

Film

• Coco:
  • The end of Ernesto's version of "Remember Me" modulates up one half-step.
  • The last verse of "Un Poco Loco" modulates up one whole step.
  • The last chorus of "La Llorona" modulates up one whole step.
  • "Proud Corazón" ends a whole note higher from when it started.
• In Frozen (2013):
  • "For the First Time in Forever" starts in F major for the first verse, then F♯ major for the second verse. The song then goes into F♯ minor for Elsa's solo, but then modulates up to triumphant G major for Anna's and Elsa's Counterpoint Duet.
  • "Love Is an Open Door" begins in D major and goes up a full step for the second verse and chorus.
  • "In Summer" starts in E but goes up to F major halfway through the song, where it stays for the end.
  • The Dark Reprise of "For the First Time in Forever" starts out in F♯ major for the first verse, shifts to C minor for Elsa's part, then modulates up to an urgent E major for the final verse.
• In The Lion King (1994):
  • "Circle of Life" starts out in B♭ major and shifts up a minor third into C♯ major at the end.
  • "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" starts in F♯ and shifts into G near the end. In this case, it's not played for emotional effect, but rather to make the song even more jolly and cheerful. The remake version also starts in F♯ and ends in G, but has an extended sequence where it shifts down to D first, then rather awkwardly transitions back to G.
  • "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" is in F major and shifts a full step to G in the final few verses.
    • The demo version starts out in C major and shifts into D major for the last few verses (the first of which can be heard in a trailer for the movie on the 1994 VHS release of The Fox and the Hound).
    • The Sing-Along Songs version from "Colors Of The Wind" (similar in style to the demo version, but with the lyrics of the Elton John pop version) starts out in B♭ major for the introduction, then shifts to G major for the first verse and chorus, and the rest of the song goes back to B♭ major.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride:
  • "Upendi" shifts from G major to A major near the end.
  • "Love Will Find a Way" starts in F major, then modulates to A major from Kovu's verse onward.
• "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins starts in B♭ major, moves up a half step to B after the second chorus, and then again to C after the third.
• "The Rainbow Connection" modulates up a half-step right before the last verse. "Shiver My Timbers" from Muppet Treasure Island also goes up a semitone every time the title repeats. Jim Henson loved this effect, and during singalongs and rehearsals would frequently shout "Modulate!", change key and expect everyone to follow him.
• "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian has one near the end. During the sing-along at Graham Chapman's funeral, Eric Idle pointed it out.
• An American Tail:
  • The first movie has "Never Say Never", in which the first verse is sung in E♭ major and the second verse in F major. The end credit version of "Somewhere Out There" is sung entirely in C major while the instrumental break plays in A major.
  • The second movie has "Way Out West" sung in B♭ major for the verses, E♭ major for the choruses, and shifts to F major for the finale. "Dreams to Dream" starts out in C major and ends in G major, whereas the end credit version starts in A major and ends in E major.
  • The third movie has "Friends of the Working Mouse" playing in B♭, then to C, and finally to D.
  • And finally, the fourth movie has "Who Will" starting out in D major and shifts to E♭ major after the middle eight.
• In The Little Mermaid (1989), "Under the Sea" starts in B♭ major, then goes up a whole tone to C major at the end of the interlude.
• The song "Run Away" from the Hoodwinked! soundtrack counts. The first verse is played in E♭, but after the first chorus, the song modulates to E major.
• The Superman March by John Williams (theme song for the 1978 movie) goes up a half tone on the last repeat of the main motif, just before the coda.
• The Sister Act cover of the Isley Brothers hit "Shout" that plays over the credits starts in D major, and then modulates a record-breaking FIVE TIMES, finally ending in G (just in time for Sister Mary Robert's verse).
• The eponymous song from Beauty and the Beast: "As the sun will rise...", a signal shifting from C♯ major to E♭ major. The end credit version has the first part of each verse sung respectively in F major and G major, while the second parts and middle eights are sung in D major and E major.
  • "Belle" is played entirely in C, but for Gaston's verse in the song, it shifts down to B♭. As for its reprise, it is played in B.
  • "Be Our Guest" goes from G major to A♭ major to A major to B major and finally to C major.
  • "Kill the Beast" starts in A minor and ends in B♭ minor.
• "Flying Dreams" from The Secret of NIMH. The song has a very loose, undefined lyrical structure, so it's roughly: Verse in C, bridge up to B♭, chorus back down to C, instrumental break in C — and then the second iteration of the bridge modulates a full step down to B major before finishing in C.
  • The sequel has these:
    • "Make the Most of Your Life" has the intro and first verse sung in C major, the second verse in D major, the third in B♭ major, the bridge and middle eight in A♭ major, and the final verse in F major.
    • "I Will Show the World" starts in B♭ major for the first part of the first verse, then shifts down to A♭ major for the second part of the verse, then back up to B♭ major for the first chorus. Then, it shifts up to C major for the second verse and to D major for the final chorus. The sad reprise of the song is sung in B♭ major, before transitioning into "All I Had is Gone", which is sung entirely in C major.
    • "Just Say Yes" has a few shifts, it's a little hard to define.
    • "My Life and My Love" starts in C major and ends in D major.
• In Moana, the main theme "How Far I'll Go" shifts up during the climax.
• Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "If You Leave", from Pretty in Pink, shifts up the second verse and chorus (themselves modulated a minor third apart) by a whole tone, drops back to the original chorus key of D for the third chorus, then has a triple gear change finale.
• The title song of New York, New York does a triumphant semitone modulation after the second chorus's dramatically extended bridge. The modulation takes Liza Minnelli's original soundtrack version from B major to C major—but note that Minnelli actually sings the first chorus in D♭.
• The main theme of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ups the pitch three times in the finale.
• In The Jungle Book (1967), during "I Wanna Be Like You", the verses are sung in C minor, while the choruses are in E♭ major.
• My Neighbor Totoro's closing Title Theme Tune shifts up from F major to F♯ major for its last chorus.
• "Mine, Mine, Mine" from Pocahontas. The first verse is in F major, the second verse is in F♯ major, John Smith's verse is in A♭ major, then Radcliffe sings a line in F major before singing the last verse in G major.
• Shrek: During the Dance Party Ending, the movie version of Smash Mouth's cover of "I'm a Believer" is initially performed at F♯ major, a slightly lower pitch than the album/single version's G major key (not to mention the original The Monkees version). Then, after Shrek and Fiona leave for their honeymoon and Donkey has a turn singing, the song shifts up to its usual pitch à la the album version.
• Spaceballs: The Instrumental Theme Tune modulates from A major to B♭ major in its final bridge.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Dunk for Future: The cover of "Don't Think I'm Just a Little Goat", the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf theme song, heard at the end of the movie pitch-shifts from an F key to a higher D key.

Live-Action TV

• The original Family Feud theme is in G, but the rarely-head ending goes up to A♭. Interestingly, the last few bars of A♭ part are used to introduce Grand Game on The Price Is Right.
• Growing Pains' extended version of "As Long as We Got Each Other" by BJ Thomas and Dusty Springfield shifts from C to C♯ halfway through the final chorus. Thomas's original solo version also included the gear change but at the beginning of said chorus.
• The 30-second theme played during the Final Jeopardy! round does this halfway through, though it goes up a minor third instead of the more-standard-for-this-trope minor second. The original version and the 1997 remix started in C and ended in E♭. The current theme starts in F and goes to A♭. The same melody became the theme song for the 1984 version. The song's introduction starts in B, then it goes up to C. The main part goes from F to A♭ to B to D to F to A♭ where it ends. Until 2008, every other rearrangement used afterwards has kept the key changes. The current version alternates between C and E♭.
• LazyTown's memetic "We Are Number One" moves up a half-step from F minor to F♯ minor for the final repetition of the chorus. "The Mine Song" modulates a whole step, from B♭ major to C major, near the end of the bridge.
  • The ending song "Bing Bang" starts out in B major and ends in C♯ major.
• The theme music to a former CBS Sports college-football studio show called The NCAA Today (the show itself was on for the 1982 and 1983 seasons) was like this when it was used for the billboard of The Prudential College Football Report starting in 1985 with then-newcomer Jim Nantz (it was also like this in the 1986 season); it started as a G as Don Robertson announced the title of the segment and its Prudential sponsorship, and then as the Prudential logo dropped off the screen, and the rounded golden frame used for the billboard moved beyond the screen, there was a few seconds of the A key to end the billboard music.
• Sesame Street: Janko Nilovic's "Portrait d'un robot", heard during the "Mechanical Technology" film segment, shifts from B♭ major to B major for its last 15 seconds.

Music

• Mr. Mister's famous power-pop/arena rock hit, "Kyrie," features one "shifting" a full step up after a break-down following the second chorus.
• Many songs from Ace of Base include these such as the many cuts of "Hallo Hallo," "The Juvenile," "Unspeakable," "Ordinary Day," and "Beautiful Morning" among others.
• Michael Bolton's song "How Can We Be Lovers (If We Can't Be Friends)" has two. One near the beginning, and the other near the end.
• Happens twice in "Give A Little" by Hanson. It starts in C, moves up to D after the first chorus, and to E after the bridge.
• Chicago's "Chasin' the Wind" and "Hard Habit to Break" both do this before the final chorus.
• Very common in Girl Group songs from The '60s, such as A Lover's Concerto by The Toys and I Hear A Symphony by The Supremes, the latter of which has three key changes and the former with an astonishing four. "A Lover's Concerto" gets bonus points for its interpolation of Classical Music by basing itself on "Minuet in G" by Christian Petznold (often misattributed to Johann Sebastian Bach). Interestingly, "A Lover's Concerto" is never in G major at all, instead modulating four half-steps from C-C♯-D-E♭-E major, and also changes the original's 3/4 waltz tempo to 4/4.
• Barry Manilow often uses this technique, most prominent example being his magnum opus "Mandy".
• ABBA:
  • Used the technique in their song "Hasta Manana", supposed to be used for Eurovision. Their manager, Stig Andersson, thought that a good pop song HAD to go up one half tone somewhere near the end. They even wrote a birthday song to him that says "We think you'll like it if we raise the song one half-tone..." in the bridge before raising it one half-tone for the final chorus.
  • There's also a key change in the final chorus from A minor to B♭ minor in "Money, Money, Money".
• In the musical oeuvre of everyone's favourite Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy, we are treated in his masterwork "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" to a shift from C major to C♯ major with neither warning nor reason. The work remains in C♯ major for the remaining two minutes of... experience.
• In the song "Take My Time" by Junior Senior, it occurs once, ends, then fades back in and shifts up again. Honestly, it's quite exciting.
• Almost required in Eurovision Song Contest entries, to the extent that this trope could be alternatively titled "Eurovision Key Change". It has become more prominent in recent years; in The '80s, by contrast, you might find this trope on only half the entries. Norway's entry in 1979, "Oliver" by Anita Skorgan, gets bonus points for modulating a full fifth.
• Also frequently used by every other poppy Boy Band, especially ones from The '90s.
  • "I Drive Myself Crazy" by *NSYNC goes up a minor third from A to C for the bridge, then back down mid-sentence before going up a major second to B for the last chorus. Straighter examples include "U Drive Me Crazy" and "This I Promise You".
  • The Backstreet Boys. Full stop. Notable offenders include "I'll Never Break Your Heart", "All I Have to Give", "I Want It That Way", "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely", and "Shape of My Heart".
• The Beach Boys' "I Get Around" does this. The song begins in the key of G major, then the bridge is played in the key of A, and then the rest of the song is played in A♭ major.
• Anita Baker is very fond of this trope. The album "Rhythm Of Love" especially uses this quite liberally.
• The Mr. T Experience's unbelievably Pop Punk "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba".
• Another arguably good gear-change occurs in Brian May's "Driven by You," a shamelessly upbeat rock song kicked up one more notch before it reaches its end.
• "#1 Crush" by Garbage, where the pitch change in the middle only makes the song scarier. "Breaking Up the Girl" does this, too. The song is played in the key of A major but shifts to B major for the final chorus.
• Done several times in the song "The Christmas Shoes", in an attempt to add to the sappy sentiment. This song shifts up by whole tones, starting in G, going to A, and ending in B - although it doesn't shift up by semitones, the gear-change effect is still there. It ends up almost too high for the main singer to sing, so they had to add a children's chorus at the end.
• The '60s song "Love of The Common People" (recorded by lots of people, but never really a hit) has each verse in a different key.
• "Danke Schoen", made famous by Wayne Newton and now popularly known as the "Ferris Bueller Parade Song", shifts up a semitone each verse. Because the song has no chorus, it's especially noticeable.
• Even Stratovarius' "Eagleheart" manages to sneak one of these in! After the last of the lyrics, the intro riff - which is the "Heart of the eagle, he flies through the rainbow..." refrain transcribed to guitar - is played four times, the last two being played on a higher string as the song fades out.
• Symphony X:
  • Used at the end of "Through the Looking Glass". Given the epic chorus, it arguably makes the already awesome song way more badass.
  • Although the song changes key frequently throughout, this can be heard at the end of "Revelation (Divus Pennae Ex Tragoedia)", where the chorus is played twice in a row but the second time it is modulated down a minor third.
• "Old Before I Die" by Robbie Williams, who apparently decided that just naming the song after a "My Generation" lyric wasn't enough. GearChange.org notes the similarity.
• Kelly Clarkson plays this straight on several of her big hits — just see "A Moment Like This" and "Because of You".
  • Also present on the very 80s sounding "Don't Rush", a duet with Vince Gill.
  • Very oddly inverted with the song "Yeah," where the song abruptly pauses and then plays its final chorus a half-step lower (D minor) than the rest of the song (which is in E♭ minor). It makes the otherwise upbeat song seem a lot spookier, but maybe that was the point, in keeping with the darker theme of the "My December" album.
• Nightwish love this trope, and they don't always limit themselves to a single semitone. Two of the more egregious examples are Tarja's "Come Cover Me" (going up a perfect fourth from D to G), and Anette's "For The Heart I Once Had".
• "Cake Dance" from the second installment of the There she is!! saga.
• Within Temptation's "Iron" does this for its final phase, taking an already awesome song and making it better.
• David Bowie's Magic Dance, from the Labyrinth soundtrack, shifts up two semitones in the middle of the song, staying in the new key for nearly two minutes before fading out.
• "Yuki" by Miyuki Nakajima.
• "Big Big World" by Emilia.
• A song known as "Pee Is Stored in the Balls" allegedly written by Daft Punk has a key change in the ending. (not like it's just Randy "HOME" Goffe who actually made the song pretending it was a lost Daft Punk track, but yeah)
• "On Broadway" by The Drifters has one at the end of each verse.
• The Anti-Christmas Song "Have I Got A Present For You" has one before the last chorus.
• Stevie Wonder is a master of modulation, but the most famous of them is "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Notably he does it twice in that song, the first being slightly incongruous both in how early it appears (at the start of the second chorus) and in its positioning (between verse and chorus); the other appears in a more traditional position between the second and third choruses. Starts out in C♯ major, and, for the final choruses, shifts up to D major and then to E♭ major.
• The Pet Shop Boys use the semitone variant in "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)", the whole tone variant in "King's Cross" and "Go West"(averted in the original by The Village People), and the minor third variant in "Winner".
• Bobby Darin's version of "Mack the Knife". He does about seven.
• "Paper Shoes" by Incubus, right after a fake ending. Also "Pendulous Threads"
• Sting's "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" (both the original and the re-recording with Toby Keith) goes up a semitone (E♭ to E) as the tone of the song changes from cynical to happy.
• Yes:
  • "I've Seen All Good People" downshifts through the entire gearbox at the end, from E to D to C to B♭ to A♭ to G♭... at which point it finishes fading out. In Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs' cover of the song, the fadeout ends up nearly too low for Susanna to sing.
  • "Owner of a Lonely Heart" gear shifts in the final 20 seconds of the song, but only on the album version; the single version fades out 37 seconds earlier than the album version.
• Latin-Jazz singer Basia's song "Blame It on the Summer" does the gearshift for the final chorus, then gears back down to its original key for the outro.
• Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
• The Beatles did this in only four songs, all of which were Paul McCartney compositions.
  • "Penny Lane" is an interesting example. The chorus is a full tone lower (A major) than the verses; the gear shift at the end returns the song to its original key (B major).
  • "Good Day Sunshine" only shifts up at the very last moment during the fade-out. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)" modulates from F to G in order to blend in with the following song, "A Day in the Life".
  • "And I Love Her" uniquely shifts up a halftone to start the solo.
• Happens in Rob Zombie's "Superbeast," of all places.
• "Dying in Your Arms" by Trivium.
• "Winterdreams", the Power Ballad from the 1984 album Balls to the Wall by Accept, has three verses, and goes up a key at the beginning of the second verse and again at the third verse.
• Buddy Rich's version of the song "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" does this twice.
• Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling." (C to D) He did this first on "Easy" with his old band, the Commodores.
• Bobby Hebb's "Sunny"... three times. Then there was the Electric Mayhem cover from The Muppet Show which added a tempo change with the key change...
• Trooper's song "We're Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)" does this twice.
• She Moves's "Breaking All the Rules", like many boy and girl band songs, shifts up a whole tone from the bridge to the final chorus.
• "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed does this during its final chorus. Once when the guitarist was giving lessons on YouTube, he said plainly "Just play the main riff I just taught you and move up two strings."
• This is a common technique used by worship leaders in the Church of Christ, where, in an effort to emphasize a theme or message, the final chorus is raised by, presumably, a half step. However, the proliferation of worship leaders with no formal musical training has led to the idea that you have to do this, completely ruining the effect altogether. Also, they tend to miss the half step and send everyone with any sort of trained ear in the audience into crying fits.
• Quite a lot of Christian music falls victim to this. It's astoundingly common in Contemporary Christian Music, Praise and Worship, and most forms of Gospel music. Some hymnals even contain pre-written modulations for each hymn, which organists can use to raise the final verse up that semitone. To be fair, it can be very tempting for a church musician to reach for this trick, cliché though it can be, since their job is to sustain musical interest while playing the same melody for several stanzas. And when it's done in African American Gospel music, it can be a reminder that Tropes Are Not Bad.
• "You Raise Me Up" by Secret Garden (and which has been covered by Josh Groban, Westlife and Celtic Woman) does this twice — once after the first chorus and then again near the end.
• Cheap Trick's "Surrender" modulates a half-step from B♭ major to B major right after the intro. And then another half-step to C major just before the last verse.
• "Sleepless Night" from the Slayers OST.
• "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", the theme song of Cheers.
• A-Teens' pop gem "Bouncing off the Ceiling (Upside Down)" goes up a whole step (A major to B major) at the last repetition of the chorus.
• USA for Africa's "We Are the World." (E major to F major)
• Cher's "Strong Enough" does this first at the first chorus, then again at the final chorus.
  • "If I Could Turn Back Time" shifts up a minor third from B to D in the middle of the last chorus. In the middle of a sentence, no less.
  • Back when she was with Sonny Bono, Cher asked him to write a song for her with a key change. His gift to her was "I Got You Babe".
• Westlife invariably have this in their songs. And if they are sat during the performance, they will simultaneously stand up and step forward as it happens.
  • Mitch Benn's "Boybands" lampshades this with "Off the stools!"
• Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck's cover of The Impressions' "People Get Ready."
• The The Jackson 5 use it in "I'll Be There" where they move up a minor third during verses.
• Janet Jackson:
  • "Doesn't Really Matter" modulates up a half-step twice, first at the last phrase of the last bridge, then a second time at the beginning of the final chorus.
  • "Together Again" shifts up by a minor third at the last verse.
• Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" does a gear change a third down.
  • And her super-hit "I Will Always Love You" does a memorable gear up change before the end (... I wish you love... (hold your breath...) [BANG!] AND IIIIIIII...!). The original Dolly Parton version, however, lacks this.
  • Another Whitney Houston power ballad, "I Have Nothing", similarly combines this with Dramatic Pauses at the start of the final chorus ("...don't... make... me... CLOSE! one more door...")
• Jesse Mc Cartney - "Because You Live" transposes up a minor third for the final choruses. (A major to C major)
• This is fairly common in the spacesynth/synthdance genre. Haggeman (Thomas Hagfors)'s songs "Digital Clearing Service (formerly Intimate Shaver)" and "Botte's Vernal Dance" both have a gear change downward during their bridge sections. The former changes back afterwards, the latter stays there. "Space Relations" has a standard upward major second gear change.
  • Another spacesynth/dance example: Myvoice - Alertia, from D minor to F minor. Myvoice's "Nosmo King" changes upward a minor second, then ends with a literal bang shortly after. "Far From Home" goes up from G minor to A minor for the bridge, then changes back.
  • Mindxpander - Star Runner (major second), Windchaser (minor third), and Town Circus (up twice, then down once). In fact, almost every one of his songs does this in some form.
  • Laserdance's "The Lost Battle", "No Escape"(up a perfect fifth, back down, then up a second, then a minor third), "Voyage of Discovery", and "Fly Over the New Territory", all from the Laserdance Strikes Back album.
  • Anders Lundqvist's "The Ordeal" and "Hyperspace".
  • Everdune has too many examples to list here.
• The Communards' cover of Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" (itself a cover of Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes) starts a step lower than Houston's version, then changes to that version's key after a rising overdubbed "aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" audible in several nearby galaxies.
• "MacArthur Park", in Donna Summer's Cover Version, modulates its last refrain a step down. The original (and "Weird Al" Yankovic's abridged parody "Jurassic Park") enters the last chorus a perfect fourth higher, in F rather than C; the vocal ensemble takes over at the Big "NO!", where the melody rises too high for Richard Harris to sing.
• "Do I Have to Say the Words?" by Bryan Adams shifts up a semitone in the middle of each verse.
• "Love Don't Roam" from Doctor Who is a continuous escalation of gear changes.
• Mary Poppins:
  • "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious) shifts up a half-step before each verse, during the "Um-diddle-iddle-iddle-um-diddle-aye" bridge. (B♭ major to B major to C major) And not only that, the song gets FASTER AND FASTER each time. And if you sing it loud enough you'll always sound precocious (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious)!
  • "Step in Time" has one, as well.
• The Mike Flowers Pops' version of "Wonderwall" shifts down a full step for the last verse.
• Yes, this does happen occasionally in punk rock. "Infected" by Bad Religion shifts from G minor to A minor at the start of its bridge, and remains in A minor until the end. "Americana" by The Offspring, meanwhile, is played mostly in E minor but shifts to the key of F minor for its final verse and then abruptly ends.
• The bridge of 3rd Party's "Can You Feel It" key-changes a third down.
• Occurs frequently in MOD and Demoscene music. "Ethnomagic" by NHP goes up a whole tone in mid-riff halfway through the song. Purple Motion's "World of Plastic" goes up a minor third at the first refrain, and up another third at the second. "Shadowrun" also modulates by a minor third. "Satellite One", also by PM, changes keys four times before looping. "Control" by The Loop does a more conventional half-step up near the end.
• Zager & Evans's "In the Year 2525" does this twice.
• Céline Dion is a repeat offender with this one. Below are just a few examples:
  • "My Heart Will Go On" goes up a major third (from E to A♭) for the last refrain.
  • "That's the Way it Is" goes up a perfect fourth to A.
  • "Because You Loved Me" also features the same thing.
  • Dion also does a gear change near the end of "I'm Alive," where it goes from a minor-like tone to a major-like one. (E&9837; major to F major)
  • Her cover of "All by Myself" also uses this technique while the original by Eric Carmen doesn't.
• Just about EVERY SINGLE SONG from the Broadway musical Hairspray, and sometimes multiple times in the same song.
• Several songs from the children's album Free to Be... You and Me incorporate one or more gear changes:
  • The title song by The New Seekers, Diana Ross's "When We Grow Up", Rosey Grier's "It's Alright to Cry", and Marlo Thomas's "Glad To Have a Friend Like You" are straight semitone examples.
  • "Parents Are People" by Marlo Thomas and Harry Belafonte shifts up a minor third from B to D for the latter's verse, then drops down a whole tone to C for the duet finale.
  • The Voices of East Harlem's "Sisters and Brothers" takes the cake with four key changes. The B-section("Ain't we happy?... Ain't we lucky?...") modulates down a major third to C, then shifts up a whole tone twice, returning to the song's home key of E. Following a relatively quiet Scatting bridge, the final chorus upshifts to F with a particularly unsettling ascending strings glissando accompanied by a concurrently rising "Aaaaah!" vocal.
• Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" starts in D and gear-changes every subsequent verse except for the fourth, ending in F.
• "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley.
• Terry Jacks's "Seasons in the Sun" does this three times — once midway through the song, and twice towards the end. By contrast, the song on which it's based, Jacques Brel's "Le Moribond", stays in the same key throughout.
• "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers has the bridge rather than the chorus shifting up four times, which is likely why the title is often mistaken to be some permutation of "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
• "Jump (For My Love)" by The Pointer Sisters jumps up a minor sixth, from B♭ to G♭, in the middle of the last chorus to boot.
• "Thousandfold" by Eluveitie. Also, "Inis Mona"
• Deborah Cox's "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here" and "I Never Knew". Both key changes are rather awkward, the former does it between the second bridge and second chorus.
• Raffi's cover of "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands."
  • The Sandpipers version changes key four times from D to E to F to G.
• Happens in the final verse of "Weird Al" Yankovic's country parody entitled (oddly enough) "Truck Driving Song". Considering Al generally doesn't use this trope in his other original songs, this probably counts as a lampshade hanging.
  • He also does it in "Frank's 2000" TV", but as a style parody of R.E.M., it's meant to be a Shout-Out to the Gear Change in "Stand" (a song which Al also spoofed directly as “Spam”).
  • Another example is "Don't Download This Song", again used as a stylistic choice (the song is a style parody of charity song ballads such as "We Are the World" by USA For Africa).
• "When You Believe" by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston gear-changes twice, from D to E at the second chorus, then from E to F♯ at the final chorus.
• The final chorus of Never Shout Never's "Can't Stand It" shifts up a semitone.
• Almost every song by Onitsuka Chihiro has a key change like this toward the end.
  • The same can be said for Ayumi Hamasaki.
• Many Disney Animated Canon songs. From Aladdin, "A Whole New World", which goes up a minor third for Jasmine's half of the song. Even better, it changes keys three times (minor third, down a step, up another third) in the Rewritten Pop Version and stage adaptation. The stage version of "Arabian Nights" also has a gear change.
  • Disney songs do this, full stop. "Prince Ali" does it about six times! Including a massive one near the end that could pop a lung. It's so bad that Robin Williams, despite his impressive vocal range, can't keep up as the song finishes.
• DragonForce's "Fury of the Storm" and "Heart of a Dragon".
• Sisqo's "Thong Song".
• The themes to Dallas and Knots Landing.
• The Doors' "Hello, I Love You."
• The second theme (1988-2001) to PBS's Nightly Business Report changed keys around the "circle of fifths", eventually coming back to C. The other theme songs also use this trope aplenty.
• Wings for Marie/10000 Days (Wings Pt. 2) by tool use this to great (and dramatic) effect towards the end of each song. Wings is A minor throughout most of the song, but at one point near the end, the guitar just decides to change the key to B minor. The effect is rather subtle and the song stays in this key until the climax, at which it reverts back to A for the outro. 10000 Days, as a continuation to the first part, is in A minor through the entire song, all the way up through the instrumental breakdown. The key change to B is much more dramatic as it happens right at the moment of climax and reverts back to A for the outro exactly the same way as in Wings, bringing it into a sort of reprise.
• Mariah Carey's cover of Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" gear-shifts a half-step down.
  • She does this in some of her other songs, too. Such as "Mine Again."
• "Wings" by Galneryus goes up a major third at the end (4 semitones or 2 whole steps), which is fairly uncommon.
• Even J-pop does this. For example, 華爛漫 -Flowers- by TЁЯRA, from DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA onward.
  • Other BEMANI songs that do this include "Dive" (including its DDRMAX remix, and the recurrent "Dive Into The Night" by Riyu Kosaka), "CANDY☆", "CANDY♥", and "Can't Stop Falling in Love".
  • The Private BEMANI Academy song "Elemental Creation" by dj TAKA and DJ YOSHITAKA inverts this, going down in key for the last one-quarter of the song.
• The ending theme song in the second Care Bears movie shifts downward from G major to F major.
• God Knows from the Haruhi Suzumiya anime.
• Less common in Eurobeat than other genres, but "Goin' On" by Lolita goes from B to C at the last chorus. An unusual example is "Send Me an Angel"(no relation to the Real Life song) by Momo, which modulates the synthesizer riff a step down after the first chorus, but the rest of the song remains in the normal key. Later, the synth goes back up to its original key in mid-riff. Irene's "Cool Lover" from the same label (SCP Music) does similar.
• Can't We Try by Dan Hill & Vonda Shepard does this by a half-step in mid-bridge. Then it goes up another half step for the fade-out coda, in mid-sentence.
• Bette Midler's "To Deserve You" goes from F to F♯ at the final chorus.
• Jessica Simpson's "Where You Are", in typical power ballad fashion, upshifts from G minor to G♯ minor in the last phrase of the bridge.
• Unusually, especially for trance music, "Alegria" by Jonatan F. (remix of the theme song from the Cirque du Soleil show of the same name) does multiple key changes during the final climax.
• Scatman John's Scatman's World features a gear-change at the end.
• Many, many Sonata Arctica songs, ranging from half a step ("San Sebastian") to a perfect fourth ("Don't Say A Word"). "Wildfire" even goes down a minor third.
• Listen To Your Heart by Roxette shifts up a major third.
  • It Must Have Been Love also shifts up a third, though on the minor scale this time.
• Edyta Gorniak's "One and One" and "Perfect Moment" (better known from being Covered Up by Robert Miles f/Maria Nayler, and Martine McCutcheon, respectively)
• Live's "Run To The Water" modulates up a full step (C to D) for the final chorus and coda. Lampshaded in the video by the sky opening up and raining on the band and the drought-stricken futuristic Police State they've found themselves in.
• Amusingly enough, Drive By Truckers do this twice in "I Do Believe".
• Berlin's "Take My Breath Away.", two-thirds in.
• Meshuggah's "Spasm" features guitars tuned down an octave and a half from standard. That's ridiculously low by any standards, but apparently it wasn't good enough for them, because the last repetition of the main riff goes down another half-step. So instead of showing off how high they can sing, the change shows off how low they can tune their guitars.
• "Over the Hills and Far Away" by Gary Moore and made famous by Nightwish, in the final chorus.
• Buckcherry's "For the Movies" modulates up halfway through the final chorus.
• A "Visit Seoul" campaign had a song by both SNSD and Super Junior called S.E.O.U.L., which featured one of these. This makes the song sound quite bone-chilling.
• Westlife's cover of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" (the original by the latter doesn't have it). Interestingly, the Westlife cover begins with a lower key than the original, then steps it up to the original's key at the end.
• "How the World Fell Under Darkness" by The Protomen features several modulations towards the end of the song.
• In other Mega Man fan music, The Megas play this straight in "I Refuse to Believe," the song based on Mega Man 3's final boss theme.
• The Black Eyed Peas started to do this on "Imma Be"... and then on the next album had two more, that even warn it's gonna change abruptly ("DIRTY BIT!" in "The Time (Dirty Bit)" and "MEGA SWITCH UP!" in "Just Can't Get Enough").
• Oasis' "All Around the World" begins with several verses and choruses in B, hops up to C for a couple of choruses (but only one in the music video), and then concludes in D for the final twenty- or thirty-ish chorus repetitions. (Some sheet music transcriptions of the song also notate a few bars as being in A: the "It's gonna be OK" repeats between the C and D choruses.) Noel Gallagher commented, possibly with tongue in cheek: "Imagine how much better 'Hey Jude' would have been with three key changes towards the end!"
• Emiliani Torrini's song Jungle Drum gears up for the finale.
• Radiohead's "Sulk" ascends from G to A for its guitar solo and final chorus.
• A Eurodance example is "Shocking The Dancefloor" by BPM. Other Eurodance examples include "Feel The Beat" by Beat Society, "Táncolj!" by Magic Kefir, "Let Me Love You" by Da Buzz, "Life" by E-Type, and "Love Me" by Magic Nation.
• Maarja's song "What in This World" starts in C, but goes up to D right before the chorus plays the first time, and stays in D until it goes up to E right before the chorus plays the second time, where it stays for the rest of the song.
• "Snoopy's Christmas (Christmas Bells)" by the Royal Guardsmen transposes up a semitone each verse — four times in all. The song starts in F and ends in A♭. The original "Snoopy vs The Red Baron" also does this, but three times.
• "Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders (full step)
  • "Day after Day" is even more this trope.
• Genesis did this with "Invisible Touch".
  • Genesis also added successive whole-tone shifts up in the fadeouts of "A Place to Call My Own" and "Time Table".
  • Phil Collins also did this on his solo album’s title track “Dance Into the Light”.
• Type O Negative's "Haunted" does a gear change from A to B♭ at the coda, after the "I'm haunted" refrain.
• Edge of Dawn's "Save My Soul" is another genre-atypical(Futurepop) example, going from G minor to A minor for the last repetition of the chorus.
• "Up The Junction" by Squeeze starts out in E, then drops to C♯ minor for the bridge, then goes up to D on the next verse, and finishes in the original key. What makes this interesting is that it’s setting us up for a happy ending to the story the song’s been telling, but the lyrics after the final key change turn out to be about how the singer’s life completely went to crap.
• Dyce, a one-album Swedish Eurotrance group featuring Sofia Lovgren of Domino, did this with their obligatory ballad "Colors".
• Britney Spears does this in "Sometimes" and "Lucky", and probably others.
• Taco did this in "After Eight" by a whole step at the second verse, and in "Puttin' On the Ritz" by a whole step at the tap-dancing break.
• "Sun of Jamaica", the biggest hit of Germany's Goombay Dance Band, goes up a whole step for the final repetition of the chorus, which then fades out.
• Happens in Bocelli's "Con Te Partirò," a shift that usually provokes rapturous applause (see: the concert DVD A Night in Tuscany). Donna Summer's Translated Cover Version, "I Will Go With You", also does it.
• Reina's "Find Another Woman" has a double minor third key change from E♭ to G♭ to A in the final chorus. "Anything for Love" does a traditional semitone modulation from D to E♭.
• DJ Ötzi's songs "Hey Baby" and "Burger Dance" each have a key change a semitone up.
• As an encore to the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert, Colm Wilkinson, Alfie Boe, Simon Bowman and John Owen-Jones (who have all played Jean Valjean in various performances) performed "Bring Him Home" as a quartet, and added one about two-thirds of the way through. It's more amusing because the song isn't actually performed that way in the musical.
• The "Trololo" song by Eduard Khil does this a couple times.
• Angels Brought Me Here by Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian has one when it goes from verse to chorus. It's a little jarring, but effective.
• "Storm of Light" by Thomas Petersen f/ Franca Morgano, at least the original mix, modulates from F to G towards the end.
• Freddie Mercury's "Love Kills", and by extension Little Boots' cover version, moves up a step for the final chorus, then up a minor third from there for the ending solo.
• "Dancing Days" by Led Zeppelin.
• E-Type's "Life", by way of a bridge passage before the final repeat of the chorus.
• Macy Gray's sole hit of note, "I Try", modulates up a semitone mid-sentence at the beginning of the last chorus.
• "Around The World (La La La La La)" by ATC. The original Russian song by Ruki Vverh doesn't follow that way.
• "Only Yesterday" by the Carpenters, when they repeat the final chorus to fade out.
• "Moskau" by Dschinghis Khan waits until the last 20 seconds to go up a semitone, from F minor to F♯ minor.
• "A Dream World In The Clouds" by Matthew Villani does this a total of twelve times in the first half before settling on F for the remainder of the song, yes it goes from F to the F an octave higher. Justified in this case, however because it's meant to signify floating upwards into the clouds.
• Appropriately enough, "Under My Wheels" by Alice Cooper has one of these just before the final verse.
• "Whatever Mattered" by mind.in.a.box, one of their obligatory power ballads, shifts up a minor third from C minor to E♭ minor for the final two choruses, after the instrumental bridge. "Doubt" downshifts from D minor to A minor between the verse and chorus, then modulates to C minor for its instrumental coda and fade-out. "Unknown" shifts its B-section a step higher than the rest of the song.
• Hall and Oates' "She's Gone" contains a series of steps in its final bridge that are not so much a gear change as the driver working through the gears after joining the highway.
• EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. American Idol/X-factor winner's song.
• Became such a crutch in Stock Aitken Waterman songs that Morris Minor & The Majors parodied it:
  This is the keychange, the fabulous keychange
  It's a standard device to stop us sounding mundane
• "Marathon" by Rush has an amazing one before the final chorus, moving up a whole step from B major to C♯ major. "High Water" moves up a minor third, from A major to C major, for the final chorus, while "Superconductor" goes up whole tones twice for the last two repetitions of the chorus, moving from C to D to E.
• Mr. Big's "To Be With You" very blatantly does this on the final chorus. The brief pause before the change almost makes it sound like they're a little embarrassed about using the trope, and arguably might be considered a subtle bit of Lampshade Hanging.
• The Motörhead song "Damage Case" starts in the key of E♭ but then, after the solo, it shifts to the key of F for the final chorus. Ditto to Metallica's Cover Version.
• The Queen song "Breakthru." After the intro, the song is played in the key of F major. However, after the solo, the song shifts keys to F♯ major.
  • The majority of "Show Must Go On" is in B minor, but the second verse jumps up a whole step to C♯ minor, and then drops back to B minor for the chorus as if nothing happened.
• Australian folk singer Butterfly Boucher's single "Another White Dash" modulates up a step in the final chorus, and then stays there for a modulated reprisal of the opening verse.
• Michael W. Smith's "Place in This World," a 1991 Christian pop hit that crossed over into the top 20 mainstream charts.
• Neil Sedaka, in many of his songs.
  • "Hey Little Devil", from F major to G♭ (or F♯) major at the end.
  • Also in "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" which goes from D♭ to D for the final chorus.
  • In Tony Christie's version of "Amarillo", the last chorus goes from A major to B♭ major.
• Ronnie Milsap's "Turn That Radio On" is mostly in G, but goes up to A on the choruses. Somewhat unusually, it goes back down to G on the last line of the chorus ("Baby, hold me close") instead of waiting for the chorus to finish.
• Enya has several songs that count as this;
  • "White is In the Winter Night" starts in B major, then modulates up a semitone for the last verse.
  • "One Toy Soldier" is in A major at the start, then goes up a half-step halfway through.
• Sally Shapiro's "All My Life" modulates from A♭ minor to B♭ minor at the ending synth solo and fade-out. Similarly, the last refrain of "What Can I Do"? shifts from C to D. "Architectured Love" has a B minor verse, an E minor bridge, and a D minor chorus, with the coda alternating between the latter two.
• Electronic dance music is not immune, with Swedish singer September and her highly formulaic "Can't Get Over" (2007) featuring a typical example on the last repeat of the chorus.
• Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" shifts keys midway, occurring when the lyrics hit the word "change", thus making it a Lampshaded Stealth Pun.
  • Also happens towards the end of "Rock with You" and "0".
• R.E.M.'s "Stand". Twice. It also uses other effects, like a wah-wah pedal, in order to be as intentionally cheesy as possible.
  • "Shaking Through" from Murmur also has one, going from D to E in the last verse.
• The last verse of Deep Purple's "Smooth Dancer".
• The Johan Agebjörn & Sally Shapiro remix of Holy Ghost!'s "Hold My Breath" shifts up a half-step at the coda, which does not occur in other versions.
• Michelle Creber's cover of "I Hope You Dance" modulates up a minor 3rd for the final chorus. The original version by Lee Ann Womack didn't do this.
• St. Vincent's "Psychopath" does this several times throughout the song, most notably during the chorus.
• The song "I Spy" by Pulp starts in the key of C Minor, shifts to C♯ Minor for its final verse, and then shifts back to its native key for the outro.
• Firehouse's "Love a Lifetime" shows just how effective this trope can be to pack some extra emotion into the end of a rock ballad.
• "Your Smiling Face" by James Taylor gets in early with a whole tone up before the second verse and packs another one in after the second chorus.
• Mary J. Blige's "Give Me You" upshifts between the last bridge and the last chorus.
• Happens in the middle bridge of the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??", usually accompanied by very loud cheers at live shows; the song bumps up from C major to E-flat major before returning to C major.
• The Reign of Kindo loves this trope. A short list of songs featuring this trope: "Needle and Thread" (G minor to C minor), "Great Blue Sea" (D♯ minor to G♯ minor to D minor), "Till We Make Our Ascent" (D major to C♯ minor to E minor and back to D major), "Thrill of the Fall" (C minor to B♭ minor), "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" (E♭ minor to D minor), "Battling the Years" (B♭ minor to E♭ minor), "Help It" (A minor to B♭ minor), "Make a Sound" (G minor to G♯ minor), "Romancing a Stranger" (B♭ minor to G minor).
• Highway Superstar's "Burn This City" steps up by a whole tone during the bridge leading to the finale.
• Beyoncé's "Love On Top" features a 4× combo gear change at the end.
• They Might Be Giants' song "Birdhouse In Your Soul" employs this in much the same way as "Love on Top", once between verses and several in a row during the ending repeat.
• Hammerfall's "The Dragon Lies Bleeding" is a straight example, rising one whole tone for the last chorus.
• Kristine's "Sleepless Nights" shifts from F to F♯ for its epic lighters-in-the-air finale. Fitting for an 80s-retraux power ballad.
• Trance song "Lullabye" by Galaxee, starts in G minor, shifts up to B♭ minor (+3 semitones) after a break, then, without any warning, shifts up to C♯ minor (another +3 semitones) for the rest of the song.
• Robbie Williams' "Party Like a Russian" (end of discussion) has one near the end.
• "Tong Hua" ("Fairy Tale" in Chinese) by Michael Wong is structured ABCBCCC, with C being the chorus. It begins in G♭ major up until the first repeat of the chorus goes up to A♭ for the second repeat, and finally B♭ for the third repeat. The lyrics of the chorus are changed slightly with each repetition: he first says that he wishes to be her angel as in a fairy tale, then that he wants to, and finally that he will.
• Mr. President's "I'll Follow the Sun" upshifts from F minor to G minor after the rap section. Ditto "Up 'n Away".
• Jumalatar's "Are We Thinking the Same Thing?" and "Private Eye" both modulate from C♯ minor to D minor.
• The New Division's "Vices" downshifts from A minor to A♭ minor.
• Kim Wilde's "The Second Time"...she cheats a bit as the notes get too high.
• The finale of The Rain Within's "Close Your Eyes" upshifts a half-step from B♭ to B, following a mid-chorus Dramatic Pause.
• Most arrangements of "Winter Wonderland" rise up a major third for the "In the meadow we can build a snowman" part. In the middle of the stanza, the song shifts up a minor third before completing the cycle by lowering back a perfect fifth.
• The last chorus of "My Special Angel" by Bobby Helms goes up one semitone from D♭ to D.
• The third verse of "Venus in Blue Jeans" by Jimmy Clanton is sung twice, the second time one semitone higher from D to E♭.
• After the singing part of "The Letter" by The Box Tops ends, the song shifts from A minor to B♭ minor.
• "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" by Brian Hyland starts in D and goes to E♭ starting with the third verse.
• The Turtles' "She'd Rather Be with Me" goes from B to C during the scatting part.
• Cheryl Lynn's "Got to Be Real" shifts up a whole tone after the second B-section ("Our love is here to stay, hey, hey HEY!").
• Brian McKnight's "Back at One" changes gears from B to C at the end of the bridge, during the line "Just in the nick of tiiiiime...". Mark Wills's cover follows suit.
• "Wanna Buy an Organ" by Da Yoopers switches from C Minor on the verses to C Major at the chorus.
• The German pop duo Nina & Mike did this all the time, often more than once per song. See for example "Aloha Ohe, bis wir uns wiederseh'n", "Kinder der Sonne", etc.
• The teen tragedy song "Patches", by Dickey Lee, does this after every verse.
• "One Tin Soldier", first recorded by The Original Caste, then Covered Up by Coven, does this before the third verse.
• "Fly Little White Dove, Fly" by The Bells has one, earlier in the song than many.
• The Big Bad Voodoo Daddy version of "Old Macdonald" goes up a half step at every verse; since there are six verses, it ends a full third higher than it started.
• Billy Bragg's "Rotting on Remand" shifts from C to D, a little earlier in the song than many examples.
• The Royal Guardsmen change keys three times in "Snoopy vs The Red Baron" and four times in the Christmas version.
• Falco does it on Rock Me Amadeus towards the end.
• "Follow The Sound" by Van Dutch, Silver Nikan & Dee Dee unexpectedly shifts up a minor third midway through the second verse.
• "I Just Had Sex" (feat. Akon) does it during the climax.
• Till Death by Japanese Breakfast does this in the end, though it's a shift downwards instead of upwards.
• Fable Cry's Dead Or Alive (For Now) has one for the final repetition of the chorus.
• "Dream Boy/Dream Girl" by Cynthia and Johnny O. goes down a minor third for Johnny's verse, then back up afterwards.
• Insania's Dream ends with repeating the lead melody overlayed with a Metal Scream which then jumps up an octave after the second repetition.
• Limahl's "Never Ending Story" shifts up midway through the song.
• Ollie Wride plays this straight with "Back to Life", but subverts it with "Miracle Mile", which modulates down a semitone for the bridge, then shifts back up for the finale.
• Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" shifts up a whole step from F to G following the bridge passage("Never had another girl like you...").
• Boney M.'s "Young, Free, and Single" upshifts from G minor to A minor for the last two choruses.
• The finale of Styx's "Mr Roboto" ("The time has come at last...") leaps up a full octave.
• "Dance With My Father" by Luther Vandross goes from B♭ to C towards the end.
• James Ingram's "I Don't Have the Heart" goes up from D to E near the end.
• "You Don't Own Me" by Lesley Gore shifts several times. Going from G, to A♭, to A and finally to B♭.
• Similarly with Dolly Parton's "Here You Come Again", which starts out in F♯, then goes to G, then finally to A♭.
• "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis is mostly in B♭, but shifts to B in the last verse.
• The final choruses of M83's "Oh Yes You're There Everyday" shift down a whole tone three times, from G minor to F minor to D♯ minor to C♯ minor, along with using Falling Bass.
• Played straight, then defied in "First Date" by Ninja Sex Party. The key picks up when Danny Sexbang sings about killing one person, then five, and then it rises again when he talks about killing ten people... then he decides that ten murders is too much for a first date and the key drops back down when he limits the killings to five.
• Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth".
• Roxi Drive's "Lost in the Game" modulates up a minor third for its ending repeat-and-fade chorus, nearly exceeding her vocal range.
• "Ti Cento" by Matia Bazar. Antonella Ruggiero does an amazing feat there and drives the truck into orbit.
• "1000 Nights and One" by East Beat Syndicate modulates in whole-tone increments through a full octave before returning to G minor.
• The Ur-Example for the rock era might be "Silhouettes" by The Rays from 1957, which modulates before the final verse to underline the song's Plot Twist.
• Caramella Girls' "How Can You Say Goodbye?" and "Wish Upon a Star" shift up a whole tone and a semitone, respectively, at their last choruses.
• Jacob Collier shifts the last verse up a quarter tone, from G major to G half-sharp major, in his acapella rendition of "In the Bleak Midwinter".
• "Blood Red Dawn" by Keldian impressivly swings up in pitch no less than four times in the final chorus.
• Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" shifts from A major to B♭ major after the second repetition of the bridge.
• "Tak Bisakah" by Peterpan goes up a whole tone for its last chorus.
• Regina's "Beat Of Love" transitions from the vocal bridge to the guitar solo with a semitone modulation from C minor to C♯ minor, then downshifts for a repeat of the bridge before shifting back up for the closing chorus.
• Vicki Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around", and by extension Gloria Estefan's cover version, steps up a semitone after the percussion break.
• Michael Bublé's cover of Dean Martin's "Sway" shifts from D minor to D♯ minor after a fake-out ending pause.
• The Sam Browne version of "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" has a key change for its instrumental ending.
• Meghan Trainor's "Dear Future Husband" modulates up a semitone from C♯ major to D major at the second chorus.
• Ray Charles' cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be" shifts up a minor third between the second chorus and third verse.
• "Bad Apple!!" is written in the key of D♯ Minor for the majority of its runtime, but the melody jumps up during the last chorus.
• Ultravox's "Hymn" steps up a whole tone from E minor to F♯ minor for the ending chorus and fade-out.
• Fifty Fifty's "Cupid"(only the original, not the Twin version) modulates from B minor to C minor for its final two choruses.
• Classical Music example, and possibly a big influence on the entire concept in popular music: Maurice Ravel's Boléro suddenly shifts from C major to E major in its final minute, providing a climactic release and resolution to the piece's signature slow-burning repetition.

Rock Music

• "Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold has one at the refrain at the end of the song that almost makes it sound like a Hillbilly Hoedown. According to the band, this was done as a sort of compromise to smooth out the transition between the final chorus and the outro (which are in different keys), even though they didn’t particularly like the result.
• Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" (a minor third up), and "I'll Be There for You".
• Celestial Wish are a fan of this trope, 'Our Creation', 'Crossing the River', and 'Dear Beloved' all have very sudden gear changes on the final chorus.
• The Who:
  • "My Generation"... multiple times. The studio version goes up from G to A to B♭ to C; the live version usually starts in A and works its way up to D.
  • "I Can See for Miles" pole vaults up a perfect fourth from E to A for the last verse and chorus.
  • "Pinball Wizard" jumps from B to D for the final verse - then drops back down to B♭ for the instrumental fadeout.
  • "You Better, You Bet" also does this near the end, shifting up from C to D.
• Three Dog Night's 1971 hit "Joy to the World" shifts up a whole step from D major to E major for a bridge—and then back to the original D major for another chorus.
• KISS's "Crazy Crazy Nights" is supposed to be the worst offender of the lot.
• Kittie's "Funeral for Yesterday" ends with two repetitions of the chorus. The first ends with a noticeable shift upwards - and the second kicks in at an even higher pitch.
• There’s an absolutely incredible example at the end of “House of Fire” by Alice Cooper.
• Interestingly, Power Metal band Nocturnal Rites frequently puts at least one modulation in most of their songs, but rarely use this trope.
• The ending riff of The Kinks' "Come Dancing" shifts down a major third.
• Heart's "Will You Be There In The Morning" does this, though this is atypical of their work, probably because this is a "Mutt" Lange song they felt pressured into recording as he was producing their album at the time.
• A nice Heavy Metal example is "Destroyed" by Hypocrisy which changes gears screaming, an amazing feat.
• Laura Branigan's cover of Alphaville's "Forever Young" modulates down a half-step to B for the guitar solo, than up a minor third from there to D for the ending chorus.
• Before the last Chorus in Queen - Breakthrough, an upwards key change occurs.
• "Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt" by The Kunts modulates upwards 5 times over its brief length, starting in C and ending up in F.
• Traffic does one a little weird with "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" - the last moment of the song is a distorted organ that is playing a rather off-key chord after finishing the final bridge, while the rest of the instruments linger and fade out in Dm. It's a bit more pronounced in live versions of the song, when the band upshifts to G maj for the Big Rock Ending.
• An unusual Garage Rock example (unusual both in how it's executed and being in a Three Chords and the Truth-based genre) is The Cryan' Shames and their 1966 Cover Version of "Sugar and Spice" (originally by The Searchers). Most of the song follows the original in being in C, but for the final verse and chorus they shift it downward to B-flat, changing the song from bright and cheerful to something a little darker (like suddenly going from puppy love to obsession).

Country Music

• Some Johnny Cash examples:
  • "The Night Hank Williams Came to Town" starts in E major, then before the second verse goes up to G major, where it stays for the rest of the song.
  • "The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago" is, at least in the San Quentin album version, in E♭ major for the first two verses, but modulates up to F major for the last verse and chorus.
  • "Oney" uses both the traditional semitone variation and then the minor-third version: from A♭ to A to C.
  • "I Walk the Line" goes E-A-D-A-E. By the end, he's an octave lower than he started.
  • "In the Sweet By and By" is in E♭ at the beginning, then modulates up a semitone after the second chorus.
• "Elvira" by The Oak Ridge Boys repeats the chorus several times at the end, with each repeat being a semitone higher. basso profundo singer Richard Sterban (who does the song's "giddyup, ba oom papa oom papa mow mow") makes the key change along with everyone else, but the fact that it's in a higher key allows him to then drop it an octave.
• "Oklahoma Swing" by Vince Gill and Reba McEntire starts off with Vince singing in B♭, then goes down to E♭ for Reba's verse. It remains in E♭ for the both of them, going back up to B♭ only for an instrumental break.
• Inverted by Conway Twitty on "I'd Love to Lay You Down", where the last few repetitions of the chorus are actually much lower.
• "Sittin' on Go" by Bryan White goes from A to B at the chorus, then back down.
• "Little Red Rodeo" by Collin Raye goes up from F to G on the chorus, then back down for the verses.
• "I Was" by Neal McCoy also goes up a whole-step for each chorus, then back down. Like "Little Red Rodeo", it was written by Phil Vassar.
• "The Way You Love Me" by Faith Hill takes it a step further. The verses are in C, but the chorus modulates up to D... except for the last line, which goes up again to E before dropping back down to C.
• "Meanwhile" by George Strait starts out in D but goes up a minor third to F for the chorus. The last chorus goes up again to G, but the song ends on an E chord.
• "Nobody Wins" by Radney Foster goes up from G to A for its final chorus.
• Rascal Flatts:
  • "Summer Nights" modulates upward twice. By the end it's way too high for lead singer Gary LeVox to sing.
  • "Easy" is a particularly odd variant: the key jumps up a minor third (C♯ minor to E minor) halfway through the second verse (sung by Natasha Bedingfield).
• Brooks & Dunn:
  • "Only in America" goes up from E to F at the final chorus.
  • The original version of "Cowgirls Don't Cry" was in A all the way through. Later on, they re-recorded it with Reba McEntire, who goes up a fifth to E. As if the sudden jump upward isn't jarring enough (the remixed version has a dead-stop before the key change, which isn't in the original), the backing track on the Reba version sounds like it was artificially pitched up for this chorus.
• "Love Like This" by Kennedy Rose modulates a fourth from D to G at the chorus. Blackhawk's 1994 rendition kept the interval the same, although they recorded the song in a lower key (G to C). Carlene Carter took it a step further in 1995, as her version goes from D♭ to G♭ (i.e., a half-step below the original), but modulates again to E♭ for the final solo.
• Ty Herndon:
  • His and Stephanie Bentley's "Heart Half Empty" starts in E♭, jumps down to B♭ on Bentley's verse and chorus, then back up to F for the last chorus, where they sing together.
  • Also true of "In Your Face" (G to A on the last chorus) "Hands of a Working Man" (C to C♯ on the last chorus).
• Kenny Rogers:
  • "Islands in the Stream" starts in C for Kenny, then goes down to A♭ for Dolly Parton's verse.
  • "The Gambler": the first verse and chorus are in E♭, the rest of the song is in E. This was lampshaded by Mike Doughty the first several times he covered the song live.
  • "He Will, She Knows" goes up from D to E at the chorus, but the last chorus goes up even further to F♯.
• David Frizzell:
  • "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" starts in C for David, and goes up to D for Shelly West's verses.
  • "I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home" goes by whole-steps at each chorus: C to D to E to F♯.
• Garth Brooks:
  • The album version of "The River" has the gear shift, but he omits it when he does it live.
  • "Squeeze Me In" starts in C, but modulates up to D when Trisha Yearwood does the second verse.
  • "Nobody Gets Off in This Town" goes up a semitone for the third verse, then goes up another for the last one.
• Leon Ashley's "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)" transposes upward as the tone of the song becomes somewhat darker.
• Several Reba McEntire songs:
  • "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" by does its half-step modulation halfway through the last chorus.
  • "Is There Life Out There" does the gear change, then goes through an instrumental bridge between that chorus and the last chorus. (The bridge is usually omitted in radio airplay.)
  • "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", goes from C Dorian on the verses to G major on the choruses.
  • "We're So Good Together": The intro is in G, but it drops to E before going back up to G at the chorus and back down again.
• Randy Travis' "1982" goes from A to B before the second verse.
• Alan Jackson's "Remember When" begins in G, goes down to C for a solo, then goes back up to A for the last verses.
• Travis Tritt and Lari White's "Helping Me Get Over You" starts in F for Travis, then goes down to B♭ for Lari.
• Bobby Bare's "500 Miles Away from Home" drops down from G to D halfway through.
• "Are Your Eyes Still Blue" by Shane McAnally goes up a whole-step at each chorus, shifting from F to G to A to B.
• The pop remix of "Amazed" by Lonestar had one dubbed into the final chorus, while the original country mix did not. Two years later, the band re-recorded "Tell Her" for the single release, adding a last-chorus gear change not found in the album version.
• "Take Me" by Lari White goes up and down a lot. The song's verses in E Major, but the choruses drop down to C♯. It then goes up to F♯ for the bridge, and the final chorus is in E♭.
• Toby Keith:
  • "Lost You Anyway" goes from D to E at the first chorus, and again to F♯ on the second chorus.
  • "Red Solo Cup" goes from A to B on the last chorus.
• Rodney Atkins:
  • "In a Heartbeat" shifts from F to C at the chorus, then back down again.
  • "It's America" starts out in A, then moves up to B halfway through the next-to-last chorus before repeating the chorus in the higher key.
• "Love Story" by Taylor Swift shifts from D to E major halfway through the next-to-last chorus
• Clay Walker:
  • "What's It to You" does half of the next-to-last chorus in the original key of D, goes up a half-step to E♭ halfway through, then repeats the chorus in the higher key.
  • "If I Could Make a Living" shifts from F to G at the next-to-last chorus, then shifts up again to A for the last one.
• Songwriter Dennis Linde was fond of this:
  • "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie shifts from G to A at the last chorus.
  • "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues" by Alan Jackson goes up a half-step before each new verse (D to E♭ to E)
  • "Ten Pound Hammer" by Aaron Tippin (A to B♭ at the third verse)
  • "Bubba Shot the Jukebox" by Mark Chesnutt also goes up a half-step for each successive verse (G to A♭ to A), and then another half-step to B♭ for the last two bars.
  • "Heaven Bound (I'm Ready)" by Shenandoah shifts from B♭ to B halfway through.
• The Jeannie C. Riley song "Harper Valley PTA" does this twice as the story the song tells progresses. Written by Tom T. Hall, who loved the "mid-song key change to emphasize a plot twist" trope. Examples from his discography include "Homecoming" (in the verse where we learn that the narrator missed his mother's funeral) and "Salute to a Switchblade" (when a character pulls out a knife).
• "Lucky 4 You (Tonight I'm Just Me)" by SHeDAISY goes up from E to G at the chorus.
• "Let's Fight" by Thompson Square: Kiefer Thompson sings the first verse in C, but the song jumps up a fifth to G for Shawna Thompson on the second verse. It then stays in G when they trade off for the rest of the song.
• "Vidalia" by Sammy Kershaw shifts from A to B at the last verse.
• "Change" by Sons of the Desert inverts this, as the song shifts down from G to F at the last chorus.

Theatre

• In Amaluna, "O Ma Ley" has a key change near the very end. The show version also starts a key lower than the soundtrack version, which lacks the gear change. The soundtrack version of "Run" changes by a major third.
• "I Met A Girl" from Bells Are Ringing modulates up half a step when the chorus comes in at the end of the refrain. More modulations follow, but the final key is a half step lower than the starting key because the song was written for an actor without a strong singing voice.
• In Aaron Copland's ballet music for Billy the Kid, the final scene, "The Open Prairie Again," repeats the music of the introduction but modulates up a major third for the last repetition of the opening theme.
• "Sing for Your Supper" from The Boys from Syracuse, after modulating down from G-major to C to keep the second chorus within contralto range, shifts up to D♭ to begin the third and final chorus, then up again to D just eight bars later.
• Cabaret does this in several of its songs: "Willkommen" ("Wir sagen..."), "So What?", "Cabaret," even the rather dour "Meeskite."
• "Someone Else's Story" from Chess modulates upward at the end of the bridge.
• "Mr. Cellophane" from "Chicago" features one on the final repetition of the chorus.
• Dreamgirls does this with the R&B ballad-style songs "I Want You, Baby" and "I Am Changing."
• "Maniac" from Flashdance didn't originally have a key change, but the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation adds one.
• In Follies:
  • "I'm Still Here" modulates up a half-step at the end of the last bridge with a brass flourish.
  • "Losing My Mind" ascends to B major from its original key of A♭ major, the modulation being accompanied by a sweeping crescendo.
• "Don't Rain On My Parade" from Funny Girl modulates up a whole tone just before the final cadence.
• In Godspell, "We Beseech Thee" goes up a whole tone after the "boom chick" interlude.
• Guys and Dolls:
  • "Adelaide's Lament" modulates up a semitone for the third part ("And furthermore..."). This was added to the show sometime after the original cast album had been recorded.
  • "A Bushel and a Peck" goes up a semitone at the second chorus.
  • "Luck Be a Lady" subverts this, being an AABA song where the second A section (but not the third) is a semitone higher.
• "Say No To This" from Hamilton jumps up two semitones from A major to B major as Alex gets it on with Maria.
• In La Cage aux folles:
  • "With Anne on My Arm" starts in C, goes up to D♭ as Anne enters, then up to D, then back to D♭ after Anne exits.
  • "I Am What I Am" starts in A and modulates upward through B and C in successive verses until finishing in D♭, building in volume and energy with each new key.
• Les Misérables actually has a couple of songs that have key changes. "I Dreamed a Dream" happens to be all over the place - the main verses are in E♭, the bridges are in a minor key, and the last part is in F major. "Stars" is in E until the last verse, which is in G major. "At the End of the Day" has F minor and F major parts.
• In Li'l Abner, "Jubilation T. Cornpone" begins in B♭ major, then modulates to B major between verses. For the final verse (excluding encore), it modulates up another half step to C major.
• In A Little Night Music, "A Weekend in the Country" abruptly jumps up from F to G for the final refrain, and after the bridge takes it up one half step more to A♭.
• In Man of La Mancha, the final reprise of "The Impossible Dream" has a double dose of this, modulating from E♭ to E to F.
• "The Lambeth Walk" from Me & My Girl changes keys for every one of its fatiguing repetitions.
• Merrily We Roll Along:
  • "Old Friends" was originally written to have the last chorus ("Two old friends") sung a minor third higher. The original cast recording subverts this and ends the song in the original key.
  • "Opening Doors" starts out in G major, but shifts up to A major and then B major for the final two choruses. Frank also starts shifting "Who Wants To Live In New York?" to higher keys when Beth auditions the song.
• Milk and Honey does this most of all with "This Is Yesterday," where each refrain sung by Ruth is a half step higher than the last (and the final choral refrain a few steps higher).
• "Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You" from The Music Man. The School Board haltingly sings "Lida Rose" in A Cappella harmony, making it sound improvised, then they end by going up a half-tone for Marian's "Will I Ever Tell You," then the two (out of 76) trombones hit the counterpoint.
• The Dream Sequence Love Song "I'd Rather Be Sailing" from the William Finn musical A New Brain features as straight an example of this trope as you can get.
• "Song of Love" from Once Upon a Mattress modulates up a semitone at the beginning of every verse after the first one.
• In Paint Your Wagon, "There's A Coach Comin' In" modulates from D to E♭ to F, and the ensemble reprise of "Wand'rin' Star" takes the key up from E♭ to F for its last half-chorus.
• Shucked: Lampshaded at the end of "Independently Owned", with Lulu singing about being "independently owned, and modulated" just before the song goes up in key.
• In The Sound of Music, both "The Lonely Goatherd" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" repeat a half step higher at the end. "My Favorite Things" repeats its last section a whole step higher, though this key change didn't make it into the movie.
• In The Unsinkable Molly Brown, every successive chorus and verse of "Keep-a-Hoppin'" is a half step higher than the last.
• Most songs in Vanities: The Musical have at least one gear change. "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" shifts up a step in the middle of the bridge, then up a half-step afterwards. "Setting Your Sights (Reflections)" goes from F to G (again mid-bridge), then down a minor third to E. "I Can't Imagine" goes up a step at the second verse and up another step in the usual place at the last chorus. The Cut Song "We're Gonna Be Okay" shifts a step down at the second verse, along with a standard last chorus half-step up key change.
• "No One Mourns The Wicked" from Wicked goes up a minor third to G, then back down to E at the very end. More typical examples are "What Is This Feeling" and "Wonderful," both of which shift keys from F to G for the last chorus, and "One Short Day" which goes up from F♯ to G (though with a change in beat for the "Wizomania" counterpoint).
  • It also appears in "Defying Gravity". Elphie gets a three-bar phrase repeated four times to allow her to get into the fly rig. It goes up a tone beginning with the third repeat, and the rest of the song continues in that key.
• Matilda:
  • "Miracle" ascends two semitones from the Doctor's last verse to the final chorus, then drops down a major third for Matilda's ending verse.
  • "School Song" changes up a half step at the 2:30 mark.
  • "Loud" shifts up a grand total of four times, twice before the instrumental and twice after, ending up a fourth higher than its starting key.
  • "My House" modulates from B♭ to C during the counterpoint reprise of "I'm Here" near the end.
  • "Revolting Children" upshifts a whole step from E minor to F♯ minor for its finale.
• "Three Friends" from Closer Than Ever has its first chorus in G, its second chorus in A♭ and its third in A. The singers don't skip a beat during the modulations, though the words they sing may be "One year later" or "Ten years later."
• In the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Little Mermaid:
  • The final chorus of "She's In Love" shifts down a minor third.
  • "Her Voice" modulates by a whole tone at its finale, though only in the revised production and not the original Broadway version or its cast album.
  • "Beyond My Wildest Dreams" shifts down a step for the Last Chorus Slowdown.
  • "One Step Closer" is the most complicated example, shifting up a minor third from G to B♭ at the second verse, then goes back to G during the instrumental reprise of "Beyond My Wildest Dreams" before returning to B♭, then dropping to A for its Last Chorus Slowdown.
  • "If Only (Quartet)" modulates up a semitone twice, first for Sebastian's and Triton's verses, then again for its Massive Multiplayer Ensemble climax.
  • The final Triumphant Reprise of "Part of Your World" shifts down a minor third from A major to F♯ major between the bridge and chorus sections.
• The Prom:
  • The final chorus of "Dance With You" goes up a semitone from C♯ to D.
  • "The Acceptance Song" modulates up a minor third from F to A♭ at the second phrase of the chorus, temporarily dropping back for the second verse, then shifts up a semitone to A for the ending.
  • "Tonight Belongs To You" downshifts a major third to A♭ with its Song Style Shift to rock at the third verse, goes back up to C for the bridge, then returns to A♭ for the disco finale.
  • "Unruly Heart"'s finale modulates up a whole tone from B♭ to C.

Video Games

• "Asterix" for the NES makes happy use of this trope, giving the already upbeat and cheerful tune in the first three "Gaul" levels an extra punch after its first loop.
• Battle Garegga: Stage 7's theme shifts up a semitone every time it "loops" (it increases indefinitely if you listen to it in the sound test).
• A Donkey Kong Country bootleg for Sega Genesis called Super Donkey Kong '99 includes two re-arranged songs from Super Mario All-Stars on its soundtrack that uses this technique. The first level uses this song, that is considered very annoying and ridiculously catchy as how short this song is and how it is unfitting to the game's level.
• Furi: "Something Memorable" by Kn1ght modulates up a semitone twice, from E minor to F minor to F♯ minor.
• Gradius III: "Underground"(Stage 3b) upshifts by a semitone twice before dropping back down to loop.
• Hollow Knight: The City of Tears theme shifts down a minor third in the last section of its loop, though only in-game and not on the OST.
• A handful of tracks from Jumping Flash! transpose up a semitone at certain points, e.g. the first level and the last level.
• Kirby's Epic Yarn: Fangora's theme consists of a short phrase that shifts up a semitone every cycle before dropping back down. Oh, and every other period has a kickass piano slide. The drop down so that it can repeat is really subtle, as well.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: The ending music goes up a perfect fourth from C to F.
• In Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work, Michelle Milken's theme shifts up a step when she and Larry get down to business.
• The ''Lemmings arrangements of "Dance of the Reed Pipes" and "London Bridge" change gears by a semitone and whole tone, respectively. The original music track "Tim 2" shifts up either a semitone or whole tone depending on the game version.
• The boss theme from Looney Tunes Collector: Alert! starts in E-flat and increases by one semitone every loop until it reaches G, at which point it returns to E-flat.
• Marble Madness: The Silly Race music periodically increases in pitch by a half-step.
• Medal of Honor: Frontline: Manor House Rally shifts up a minor third; this section happens to be the second version of the Variable Mix in-game. Better yet, The Halftrack Chase moves up a step three times.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man 2: "Wily's Castle Part 2" consists of a 4-bar phrase that shifts up a semitone every cycle, and drops back down after going up a full octave.
  • From Mega Man 4, Bright Man's theme goes up a full step after the first twenty seconds.
  • Inverted in Rockman 4 Minus ∞. When a Robot Master Turns Red, the music speeds up and shifts down from C to B.
• The first theme of "Tallon Overworld" in Metroid Prime uses this; it starts off in the key of G Mixolydian^note A Mixolydian scale is simply a Major scale with a lowered seventh note, so in G Mixolydian, the F# at the end would be changed to a neutral F with no clear melody, switches to Tonicized C once the melody starts to kick in, switches to F Mixolydian soon after, and the second half of the song switches and climaxes in B♭ Mixolydian.
• In Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the Final Boss music modulates up a semitone in the second half of the battle, which is also where the Theme Music Power-Up kicks in.
• Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: Unusually for a BGM track, Slateport City's theme has this mark the end of its loop. At first, it sounds like it's looping back to its opening notes at the 40 s mark, but 20 seconds later, it diverges into a bridge section that leads to a full tone higher rendition of its opening notes before looping back to the lower tone.
• At the end of Quest for Glory II, the background music shifts up from D minor to F minor as you enter the Emir's palace through the front gate.
• San Francisco Rush implements this rather poorly in several songs. For example, "Blue Fog" and "Rave Rush", which begin with a single song and then repeat the exact same song a semitone higher.
• Various level themes from Sonic Robo Blast 2 include this, mostly in the multiplayer levels. Examples include "Aerial Garden Zone", the Speed Shoes theme, among others.
• Splatoon:
  • The single-player levels (boss fights excluded) step up their music a pitch when you get to the final checkpoint.
  • In Splatoon 2, the rendition of "Tidal Rush" used during the second phase begins in A minor but soon modulates up a whole tone to B minor. This is definitely definitely for emotional effect.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The ending music to several entries: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels goes from C to F, Super Mario World goes from C to C♯, Super Mario 64 also goes from C to C♯, the list goes on.
  • The full version of the main theme of Super Mario Odyssey, "Jump Up, Super Star!" modulates from E♭ Major (already a full minor third higher than the verses) up to E major for one last chorus, though the coda modulates still further and ends up in D♭.
  • The credits music to Yoshi's Island also starts in C, but shakes things up a little by modulating up to E♭ before it drops down and ends on C♯.
  • When bosses in Super Mario Galaxy reach their last HP, the music restarts a half step higher.
  • In every Mario Kart game since Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, the music goes up half a step when you are on your last lap. Baby Park from Double Dash!!, when ported to Mario Kart 8 in a DLC pack, modulates up a half step per every lap.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: The main theme, "Lifelight", has its last verse a semitone higher in pitch.
• Touhou Project songs are full of key changes:
  • An exemplary example would be Scarlet Symphony ~ Scarlet Phoneme, the theme song of Kurumi from PC-98-exclusive Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story, which is nothing but key changes on a fourteen-second motif.
  • The finale of "Land of Dreams", the Eurobeat arrange of "Angel's Legend" from Touhou Reiiden ~ Highly Responsive to Prayers, shifts up three times as it fades out. The original just shifted up one semitone for the second repetition of the melody, then reverted back to the initial key as it looped.
  • "Solar Sect of Wisdom~Nuclear Fusion" simply repeats the same melody a fifth higher for the second half of its loop. The Eurobeat arrangement by DJ Command has a double semitone key change instead.
  • "Emotional Skyscraper~Cosmic Mind" from Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object shifts from G minor to B♭ minor halfway through the upbeat A-/section, drops to E minor for the slow B-section, then shifts back to the original key before looping.
  • "Wind God Girl" from Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View goes up a half-step (from F minor to F♯ minor) for the last 39 seconds before looping.
  • Night of Nights, a well-known remix of "Flowering Night" from Phantasmagoria of Flower View, shifts from D minor to E♭ minor near the end of the song.
• Transport Tycoon: "Little Red Diesel" steps up from D major to E major for the last verse.
• Undertale:
  • Undyne's theme consists of two nearly-identical tracks — "NGAHHH!", which plays during her pre-battle speech; and a slightly rearranged version called "Spear of Justice" that kicks in when the actual battle starts. The latter modulates up from G minor to G♯ minor after the first few lines to let you know that shit just got real. Because it has to loop for the duration of the fight, it also has to modulate back down at some point and manages to do so in an equally dramatic fashion. Oddly enough, "NGAHHH!" started out at G♯ minor to begin with.
  • The title track, "Undertale", is a fully straight example; the one time in the game it plays, it does not loop, and with nearly a minute to go in the song, it modulates up one semitone, from A♭ major to A major, and stays that way until the end.
• Wario Land II: "The Journey Home", the music that plays during the credits, is in C Major. Two bars into the coda, it shifts to D♭ Major.
• In Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap:
  • The second bridge section of "Sidecrawler's Dance" modulates down a whole tone. The TurboGrafx-16 version, however, omits this key change.
  • "The Danger Zone" shifts up a semitone at about the halfway point.
• Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair: The boss theme does this, although in-game, the boss timer expires before it reaches that part. The Ice World / Desert music also goes up a step for its second half.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1: "Engage the Enemy" is in A♭ minor for most of the piece, but modulates for the final 'chorus' up a semitone to A natural.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2:
  • "Counterattack", a remix of "Engage the Enemy", modulates up from F♯ minor to G minor for the final section.
  • "Incoming!" modulates a tone up from D minor to E minor for the final part of the song. Funnily enough, it shifts back down to D for the last few measures.

Web Animation

• The Amazing Digital Circus: Near the end of the full theme song, the key shifts upward, giving it a slightly manic edge that complements Pomni's mental breakdown at the end of the video.
• Kurzgesagt: Among the multiple instances of modulation in the soundtrack for "The Most Horrible Parasite: Brain Eating Amoeba" (as the situation gets increasingly dire for the infected) is a semitone shift up between the "symptoms appear" and the "symptoms get serious" sections of the video.

Western Animation

• G.I. Joe: The Movie: The opening theme goes through at least three upward tone shifts.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle: "Call Upon the Sea Ponies'' has a semitone gear change mid-bridge.
  • My Little Pony (G3): The theme song shifts from B to D for the Theme Tune Roll Call bridge, then drops to B♭ for the ending refrain. The Theme Tune Extended starts in B♭, and shifts up a semitone to B between the first and second verses.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • "The Best Night Ever": "At the Gala" modulates up a semitone twice, before and after Twilight's verse. "Pony Pokey", as with the original "Hokey Pokey", upshifts on every verse after the first, for a total of four times.
    • "May the Best Pet Win": "Find a Pet" drops down by a whole tone in the middle of the bridge.
    • "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000": The Flim Flam Brothers' Villain Song does this at the last refrain.
    • "A Friend in Deed": Pinkie Pie's "Smile Song" moves up a semitone midway through the choral finale.
    • "Magical Mystery Cure": "A True, True Friend" upshifts by a semitone mid-sentence at the end of the chorus before the last verse.
    • "Rarity Takes Manehattan": "Generosity" goes up a full step from the bridge to the last verse.
    • "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1": "You'll Play Your Part" modulates up a fourth at the first chorus, then shifts up a step from there for the final chorus.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: "This Is Our Big Night" shifts up a step during the chorus, and the reprise shifts during the "Six friends on the way" bridge. The soundtrack version has the key change during the second bridge.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks:
    • The final chorus of "Battle (of the Bands)" shifts up a whole tone from C minor to D minor.
    • The final chorus of "Welcome To The Show" also modulates up a whole step.
    • The bridge of "Shine Like Rainbows" shifts up a fourth, then the song returns to its original key for the last chorus.
• Phineas and Ferb: The title song in "Summer Belongs to You!" has several different keys for the verse, pre-chorus and chorus, but then after Ferb sings, "Bay-bee, bay-bee, bay-bee, bay-bee...", the chorus goes up a key.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Happens in "Mayhem of the Music Meister!", with "I'm the Music Meister", "If Only", "Death Trap", and "The World Is Mine".
• Jay Jay the Jet Plane:
  • "The First Time That I See A Shooting Star" starts out in B♭, then shifts to E♭ for the second half.
  • "Breezy" shifts up a whole step after the bridge.
  • The final verse of "Super Sonic Boom" shifts up a semitone from the last chorus on.
  • "Where Does the Music Come From?" is mostly in F, but briefly shifts to E♭ then to D♭ for the second verse, then to E♭ for the final verse before modulating back to F.
  • "My Snuggly Wuggly One" suddenly shifts up one step when the final word is sung.
  • "My Rainbow World" shifts up one and a half steps, but returns to its original key for the reprise. For the album version, it does the shift for the second verse, before shifting back down for the instrumental break. Then it shifts up for the last verse.
  • "You Are Unique" is in C, but shifts to A for Snuffy's Triumphant Reprise.
  • The final verse of "Going There With You" modulates up one step and a half.
  • "An Amazing Blazing Light Parade" is in C, but in the reprise, it's in B.
  • The last verse "On a Switch-Around Day" shifts up half a step.
  • "Up Is Up" shifts up a semitone toward the end of Snuffy's verse, then shifts back to its regular key from the next verse on.
  • "The Truth About Losing a Tooth" is mostly in G; as it approaches the climax it modulates down one step, then down another for the final line.
  • "A Traveling Song" modulates up two steps; once for Snuffy's verse and again for Big Jake's.
  • "Goin' to the Ocean" starts out in C, but modulates up two steps when the lyrics begin.
  • The last verse of "You Can Count On Me" shifts up one whole step.
• "Yakko's World", the Animaniacs List Song, shifts up a semitone after each verse, ending up a minor third higher than it started.
  • The show's theme song itself goes through four changes (A♭ to C to E♭ to G to B♭). When the show was aired in reruns on Nickelodeon, they abbreviated the intro and pitched up the part that was in A♭.
    • A staple of Richard Stone's work; he did this with the themes for:
    • Freakazoid!, which goes from B♭ minor to B minor.
    • The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, which goes from C minor to D minor.
    • Road Rovers, which goes from C to E.
• The Ending Theme of Count Duckula, which also starts a key higher than the Opening Theme.
• The Tiny Toon Adventures theme song goes up from E to F for the second verse.
• The theme song of DuckTales (1987), which goes from E major to F♯ major for the finale. The reboot's version of the theme similarly begins in F major and shifts to G major for the climax. Launchpad's "Theme Song Takeover" version of the latter lampshades the trope in its lyrics.
• The theme song for Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers does this three times, starting in B♭ major, shifting into C major for the first chorus, then E♭ major for the second, and finishing off in F♯ major.
• The theme song of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh starts off in G major, and then shifts to A major in the final chorus.
• The Raccoons:
  • To start, The Christmas Raccoons. "Perfect Tree", "Lake Freeze", and "Shake the Sun" all start out in C major, then end in D major. The only other song "Lost Angels" is sung entirely in A major.
  • Next, The Raccoons On Ice. "Takin' My Time" starts out in C major, then shifts to C♯ major after the middle eight. "To Have You" begins in G major. As it heads to the instrumental break, it shifts to A♭ major. It remains that way for another chorus. After that, the song shifts to B♭ major for one final chorus, and the ending. "Some Days" starts out in E major, then shifts to F♯ major. The whole of "You Can Do It" is in C major, then during the instrumental ending, it shifts to D major.
  • The Raccoons and the Lost Star has "Lions and Tigers" starting out in F major, and then shifts to F♯ major. "Shining" begins in F major, then the next verse goes to G major, and the pre-chorus and remaining choruses are sung in A major. "Friends" starts out in C major, shifts to D major for the second chorus, goes back to C major for the instrumental break and middle eight, and then to D major once again for the final choruses.
  • Finally, as for the series proper, "Sooner or Later" starts out in D major, then to E♭ major for the ending.
  • "All Life Long" plays in D minor for the verses and D major for the choruses, then shifts to E major at the end of the guitar solo.
  • "Growing Up" shifts from F♯ minor to G minor when it heads to the synth harmonica solo.
  • "Hold Back Tomorrow" shifts from E minor to F♯ minor for the final choruses.
  • "Stop the Clock" has the verses played in D minor, and the choruses in C minor. Once it hits the guitar solo, it shifts up to G minor. The second part of it shifts up to G♯ minor, and the final choruses played in C♯ minor.
  • "New World" starts out in F major, then shifts to G major for the guitar solo, and finally to A major for the final choruses.
  • "Come On Home" begins in B♭ major, and after the guitar solo, it shifts to B major for the final choruses.
  • "When the Sun Comes Up" has the verses sung in D minor, the pre-choruses in F major, and the choruses in G major.
• All Dogs Go to Heaven:
  • The first movie has "You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down" (D♭ major to E♭ major to D♭ major again to D major), "What's Mine is Yours" (A♭ major to B♭ major), and "Love Survives" (G major to A major).
  • The second movie has "It's Too Heavenly Here" (F major to A♭ major to F major again to A♭ major again and finally to A major) and "My Afghan Hairless" (A major to B♭ major). "On Easy Street" has the first part of each verse sung in C major, and the rest in E♭ major, then shifting to F major for the finale. "I Will Always Be with You" (both the film and credit versions) begins with E major in the first verse, then to C major for the next verse and the middle eight, and finally to E♭ major for the finale. The latter version, however, stays on E♭ major for the instrumental break and finally shifts to F♯ major for the finale.
  • The TV series has several:
    • The theme song "A Little Heaven" begins in A major and ends in B♭ major. This is done in the first two seasons. The third and final season has a shorter variant played entirely in B major.
    • "It's Gotta Come from the Heart" begins in F major for the first verse, then shifts to G major, and finally to A major for the finale.
    • "Casanova" goes from D minor to E♭ minor.
    • "Everything a Girl Wants" goes from B major to C♯ major.
    • "The Perfect Dog" has the first verse and chorus sung in B♭ major, the second verse in C major, and the final chorus in D major.
    • "Take the Easy Way Out" goes from C to C♯.
    • "Sidekicks" goes from F major to F♯ major.
    • "Why Not Be Happy" goes from G major to A♭ major.
  • An All Dogs Christmas Carol has "When We Hear a Christmas Carol" (D major to E♭ major) and "Clean Up Your Act" (E♭ major to E major). While "I Always Get Emotional at Christmas Time" is sung entirely in A♭ major, the slow reprise is sung in F major.
• VeggieTales: There's just so many songs in this long-running Christian cartoon series, here are some examples:
  • "The Eight Polish Foods of Christmas" and "I'm So Blue" shift from G major to A major.
  • "Promised Land" shifts from D major to E♭ major.
  • "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" shifts from F♯ major to G major to A♭ major.
  • "Haman's Song" shifts from E minor to F minor to F♯ minor to G minor.
  • "Larry's High Silk Hat" shifts from E major to F major.

Other

• "There's a Light", the song written by Gregory Charles for the Olympic torch's relay across Canada, has a couple of gear changes.
  • "I Believe," the "anthem" of the 2010 Winter Olympics, also abuses this trope.
• The National Aerobic Championship theme by Ty Parr modulates upwards from F to G, though this part is not used in the more commonly seen viral video.

Parodies, Subversions, and Lampshade Hangings:

Miscellaneous

• Spitting Image's "Chicken Song" is a parody of mainstream pop songs and goes higher at every chorus.
• Probably best exemplified by "Title of the Song" by Da Vinci's Notebook (perhaps better known as "The A Cappella Act Paul and Storm Used To Be In") which actually points out that it's doing this: "Modulation and I hold a high no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ote..."
• Subverted in Denmark's 1982 Eurovision Song Contest Entry, "Video Video" by Brixx... the song goes into the bridge leading up to the final chorus... there is tension in the air... are we going up? - Nope, the orchestra HAMMERS THE ROOT NOTE HOME and we return to the original key, sing the last chorus and leave the stage.
• AC/DC's "Play Ball" sets one up during the guitar solo, in which the guitar's pitch rises by an octave, but then it goes back to the normal pitch.
• The Monty Python musical Spamalot has several variants:
  • Lampshaded by "The Song That Goes Like This", which is a dramatic ballad about everything that occurs in dramatic ballads. It starts in F major: The key change occurs upon the lyrics "And then we change the key", and the song modulates up a full step to G major. The vocalists spend the first part of the next verse complaining about the added difficulty of having to sing higher. Then the key goes up a full step to A major for the next verse, with the singers complaining about the song's seemingly endless length. For the last verse, with the song modulating a last full step to B, they are swearing when they hear the final one coming.
  • The live version of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" has the lead singer point out the key change.
  • "He is Not Yet Dead" has three key changes. The song is played in C major from the start up until Sir Robin and Sir Lancelot are singing a counterpoint duet, at which the song modulates up a semitone. The song then modulates to A for the next verse and G for the last verse.
  • "Find Your Grail" has two key changes after Arthur's lines. The version that is performed starts in E major then goes down to C major, then back up to F♯ for the final part.
• Subverted in Motion City Soundtrack's "Fell In Love Without You": The key changes for a final repetition of the chorus, and it sounds as if the song is going to end immediately after. Instead, the song switches back to the original key and repeats the chorus one last time, giving the ending a slightly unnerving effect.
• Lampshaded again in "Show Off," from the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, a song about how much the character wants to retire from show business and stop doing everything she's doing: "Iiiiiiiiii don't wanna change KEYS no more!"
• Occurs, complete with a nice lampshade attached, in Mitch Benn's "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now", an Affectionate Parody of the tropes of post-Britpop British rock as exemplified by Coldplay: "And if you can doooo/A high bit in the middle eight, then yoooou/Have almost solved the riddle of just how/To sound like Coldplay now..."
  • Also Lampshaded in Mitch's West End Musical:
    This is the great big opening song
    The kind that Lloyd-Webber writes and arranges
    It's actually very tricky to sing
    It's got lots of unnecessary key changes
    There, did you spot it? That was one there
    We started in C, now we're in D Major...
• Occurs in the song "Haben Sie Gehoert Das Deutsche Band?" in The Producers. Franz Liebkind shouts out "Key change!" before the coda.
  • This is a Shout-Out to Mel Brooks' High Anxiety, where Dr. Thorndyke (played by Brooks) yells the same thing while singing the title song.
• The infamous "pizza theme" from the video game Spider-Man 2 does an intentionally bad, fast and exaggerated pitch shifting to an arrangement of the traditional song "Funiculi, Funiculà" following the rhythm of the minigame featured on it.
• Occurs in the song "Two Nobodies In New York" from Title Of Show. Like The Producers, Hunter yells "Key change!" before the song changes keys.
• Done in this piano segment from The Muppet Show. Rowlf tells Fozzie, "Modulate!" and, when met with confusion, gets him to do it by shoving him to the right.
  • Marvin Suggs, while performing "Witch Doctor", shouts the command "Modulate!" to his Muppaphones, who all comply by moving down one space so that Suggs doesn't even have to play them differently.^note These were both inside jokes, since Jim Henson would always shout "Modulate!" during between-take singalongs on The Muppet Show set.
• Barry Manilow is so identified with this that when Ray Stevens recorded the parody "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", he made sure to include it. It can also be heard just a few seconds into the Not The Nine O'Clock News parody, Wet And Lonely.
  • Also Lampshaded in Stevens' cover of the theme from The Monkees, which he performs as an Austrian singing duo, both characters voiced by him. Come the key change, the characters get into an argument about going too high.
  • Stevens himself is an important figure in the history of this trope, having modulated upward in his big hit 1970 ballad "Everything is Beautiful" twice toward the end of the song, one of the first really shameless uses of this to introduce a rousing element into a sentimental song. The above-mentioned "Man in the Mirror" clearly was influenced by this song in its lyrics and arrangement.
• Inverted in the Forbidden Broadway parody "I Couldn't Hit The Note", spoofing how Julie Andrews can't hit high notes anymore, the song keeps modulating down.
• In the movie Blast from the Past, the two main characters are listening to a Perry Como song on the car stereo, and Adam gets all excited over a slight key change towards the end.
• Lampshaded in the With Lyrics version of the Final Fantasy Classic theme by brentalfloss:
  Lyrics: Shine your light, the forces of evil can't outlast a mage, a knight, a weird little kid, and a ninja master
  KEY CHANGE, MOFO!
  • He uses the same gag again in Here at the Gaming Con.
  • And invoked in his duet about Super Mario Land.
• In the "Weird Al" Yankovic/Kate Winslet(!) duet "I Need A Nap":
  Both: I don't want to harmonize with you
  With me
  Al: Change keeeeeeeeey!
  Kate: Make him stop!
• The game show Wheel of Fortune, between 1983 and the mid-2000s, used a theme song called "Changing Keys", a pretty obvious lampshading of this trope. The theme was remixed several times, with the last two remixes having few to no key changes.
• Me First and the Gimme Gimme's have an unintentional parody of this during their cover of "Heart of Glass." The bad modulates higher with every chorus, and eventually the lead singer has to scream into the mike to make the band stop, explaining that he can't hit a note that high. The drummer then quips back "Dude, it's only three modulations."
• In MC Lars' "True Player For Real", it would be played straight, were it not for him upright announcing at the shift, "Key change!".
• Subverted beautifully by Placebo in "Bright Lights", one of their most cheerful songs, which features a very characteristic keyboard riff over the chorus. After the second chorus ends in C major, the song builds up and the riff starts in D... but D minor, it turns out after a few notes, and they never actually changed key.
• The Bo Selecta Christmas Novelty song "Proper Crimbo" lampshades this with the lyric "Can I get a key change?". Bob Geldof seemed particularly amused.
• Parodied and lampshaded in Truck Driving Song from the Swedish comedy show Macken, where a truck driver sings about his occupation. The last words in the chorus translates to "And if the song gets too boring, then I keep it cool. I change the key and shift it half a step", which then continues to happen throughout the song. Then he does it about ten times straight right at the end.
• "Supernatural" by Wild Orchid has the lyric "Lift me up higher, higher and higher!" at the point of key change.
• Now it's getting hairy, so we're changin' the key/Never underestimate, the power of D!
• "Map Ref. 41ºN 93ºW" by Wire hangs a lampshade on this by announcing the dramatic chord change from the verse to the chorus with Colin Newman shouting, "CHORUS!" Also, "Being Sucked In Again", in which the entire verse part is made up of dramatic chord changes, and "Indirect Enquiries", where it's the whole freaking song.
• Exaggerated - In Britain's Got The Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice, the deliberately cringeworthy "The Winner's Song" does this, and then does it again two measures later.
  • Parody of how Simon Cowell always puts in a Key Change into songs, particularly The X Factor winning songs.
• Subverted by the Kaiser Chiefs in "I Predict A Riot" and in various other songs. Towards the end of the song, they start shouting in a gradually rising pitch, as if building up to a modulation, but instead they remain in the same key.
• Inverted and then played straight in the theme song of The Half Broken Music Box: The song's verse is in C major, but it unexpectedly shifts down to B major to start the refrain. Then for the second sentence of the refrain, it shifts back up to the original key of C major.
• Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" indulges in a cry of "Gonna take it higher now!" and proceeds to shift up one semitone with all the finesse the trope name implies.
• Kylie Minogue's "Your Disco Needs You". The song plays it straight at first by going up in the lead up to the final chorus. Once "Cure a lonely heart" is reached (where the title of the song is sung repeatedly), the song returns back to the original key.
• "I Just Had Sex", by The Lonely Island and featuring Akon, features an upshift towards its conclusion, as everyone joins in.
• In The Brave Little Toaster, many of the songs include an instance of this. Most notably is near the end of "Like a B-Movie". This bit is even amplified on the soundtrack version. It hurts a little.
• Played with in a tiny piano piece by Leoš Janáček called ''Cekám Te!'' (Czech: I Am Waiting For You!) which consists of four four-bar phrases, arranged in a song-like AABA form. The piece is entirely in A major until the last two bars, which abruptly shift to D♭. However, instead of going on to play the A section again in the new key, the piece just stops abruptly (on the dominant chord!) — hence the title: it's "waiting for" a phrase in the new key which will never come.
• The Aristocats lampshades this in "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat", which says, "Let's take this to another key, modulate, and wait for me..."
• Axis of Awesome's "How To Write A Love Song", which dissects generic '90s R&B love songs, naturally includes a couple of gratuitous key changes, and accompanying lyrics explaining their role in the song.
  "When you change the key in a love song/It means you're singing passionately."
• Markoolio and Linda Bengtzing's "Värsta Schlagern" lampshades the hell out of every single music cliché to ever plague the Eurovision Song Contest, including this one ("Här kommer höjningen till slut!"^note "here comes the upward shift at last") as they go into the final chorus.
• Breaking Benjamin's "Forget It" is made of this trope; starting at E♭, the verse structure shifts up a semitone with each verse until it winds up at an A♭ for the last verse.
• Lacuna Coil's "Fragments of Faith" zig-zags the hell out of this trope - the home key is G♯ minor, but pre-choruses are in A minor and both the first chorus and the first half of the second chorus is in F♯ minor. The "offending" gear change during the second chorus is actually a return to the original key.
• The Idolmaster has a lot of music so having a lot of examples of this trope is not a surprise (starting with "Positive!"). There are, however, a couple of examples where the key goes down before the last chorus then comes back up to the original key, such as "Nemurihime".
• Tommy Roe's "Dizzy" probably holds the record for most key changes in a pop song — in less than three minutes of running time, it switches between D major, E major, F major and G major a total of 11 times.
• In Marshall Crenshaw's "Monday Morning Rock," he shouts, "Ohhh... key change!" just before the guitar solo.
• Fellowship! The Musical parody of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring has "The Lament of the Ring", which does this for visual comedy: each time Frodo changes to a higher key, he correspondingly stands up higher to prevent Boromir from taking the ring - while Boromir starts singing about how the key is getting too high for him to sing comfortably. Eventually Frodo is standing on tiptoes on a chair, and singing in falsetto.
• The Super Mario Galaxy remix of the Super Mario Bros. main theme features this.
• Subverted in the Manhattans' "Shining Star"; after the first chorus the song goes up from B Major to C Major on "loooooone", but goes back down to B Major on "ly". This is played straight later on.
• Inverted in "Tonight" from West Side Story, which moves down from B♭ to A to A♭ with each successive chorus so the actors playing Tony and Maria don't have to worry about singing the calm and quiet ending in a high key.
• Lampshaded in "I Believe In God" from Leonard Bernstein's Mass, as the song reaches its climax:
  (In G major—fortissimo)
  I believe in F♯.
  I believe in G.
  But does it mean a thing to you,
  Or should I change my key?
  (In A♭ major—still louder)
  How do you like A♭?
  Do you believe in C?
• The Tornados' instrumental "Telstar" shifts from A Major to D Major after the bridge.
• The Megadeth song "A Tout Le Monde" subverts this. The song is played in F-minor, briefly shifts to G-minor for its final verse but then returns to F-minor for the final chorus.
• Another metal subversion: "Liar" by Helloween. The song's verses are played in A♭ minor, while its chorus is played in E♭ minor. Two lines from the final rendition of the chorus, however, are played in E minor. The chorus returns to E♭ minor for its other two lines, and then the song ends in A♭ minor.
• P.D.Q. Bach's "Song to Celia" (a parody of Ben Johnson's eponymous poem and the song based on it, "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes"), has a none-too-steady chorus attempting modulations in various places and picking fights over the key with the accompanist. The last verse modulates 6 times, 4 of them on a single syllable, and the last 2 painfully scooped down and up.
• Some of the music Giorgio Moroder composed for American Gigolo, including a part of the title song "Call Me" by Blondie, is made so that it sounds like shifting one note up at every repetition. It doesn't: the motif ends one note lower than it starts.
• Punk band Tijuana Sweetheart lampshaded this in their song Tattooed Women by shouting "KEY CHANGE!"
• The Last Five Years: Composer Jason Robert Brown plays the trope straight a couple of times in the musical—several key changes in a row towards the end of "Movin' Too Fast," the finale "Goodbye Until Tomorrow"—but subverts it in "Nobody Needs To Know." The song is in A♭ for its entirety up until the last six measures, when it modulates down a half-step into G major. This happens over the very last note that Jamie (the character) sings, meaning that he completely misses the note the audience was expecting to hear.
• The Kinsey Sicks incorrectly call it a modulation in their version of "The Rose" which takes place at the final major key change.
• In Pippa Evans's parody of a typical Eurovision song on The Now Show, she also yells "KEY CHANGE!" halfway through.
• Tracy Lawrence's "Paint Me a Birmingham" goes from G♭ major to A♭ major in the last chorus. When Cledus T. Judd parodied it as "Bake Me a Country Ham", he pitch-shifted his voice on the key change to make himself sound even more like Lawrence.
• "Annie 3" from Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly has a Last Chorus Slow-Down accompanied by the typical modulation following the line, "And reach that unreachable note!"
• "She Is My Sin" by Nightwish starts in C, then drops down to A and stays there for the rest of the song, only moving back up to C in the final chorus.
• "Bruiseology" by The Waitresses (of "I Know What Boys Like" fame) has numerous increasing key changes at the end of the song until it fades to silence.
• "Ka Huila Wai" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole is mostly in A but shifts up to C in the final stanza, which then repeats in D.
• Stan Freberg's parody version of "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" ends with the music getting higher and higher and faster and faster until the equipment explodes.
• In "Feeling Grove-y" from the Johnny and the Sprites story "The Sprites Sleep Over," the titular Sprites sing about how the couldn't possibly get to sleep unless they're back in Grotto's Grove, culminating with "Oh, how I wish I was there now... (going up a key) right now!", leading Johnny (who already wishes the Sprites would just go to sleep) to lament, "Oh no, not a key change!"
• Tom Lehrer takes this to deliberately ridiculous extremes in "We Will All Go Together When We Go," on An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer, which changes keys after half of its verses, getting into some very silly keys in the process.
• Bo Burnham did one of these in a song that pokes fun at the country music genre. Towards the end of the song he says "Y'all dumb motherfuckers want a key change?"
  • Also invoked in the hip hop parody "Oh, Bo" from his album "Words Words Words"
• Lampshaded in Hamilton during Farmer Refuted. The third repetition of Seabury's verse modulates up a semitone. As Hamilton makes his own comments, Seabury is just repeating the same thing, and Hamilton says "Don't modulate the key then not debate with me!"
• Erasure's "Run To The Sun" modulates its last prechorus from C to D, only for the chorus proper to drop back to C.
• Exposé's "Come and Go With me" upshifts from E minor to F minor at the bridge, but shifts back for the final chorus.
• "God Laughs" by Willie Nile Lampshades this:
  "God knows your tune and changes keys"
• Subverted in Bob Seger's "Chances Are". The first and final verses are in B♭, the middle drops down to A (for Martina McBride's verses).
• Going by the Studio Chatter, this is Invoked in Anthem Lights' "Love You Like the Movies."
  "Key change?" "Nah, I don't want to." "I feel like we should do a key change." "Ok." I'll grab your hand, ask you to dance...
• Garfunkel and Oates change keys twice towards the end of "What's Gonna Happen to Chris?" by stopping and adjusting the capos on their instruments.
• "Love, Love, Peace, Peace", the interval act from the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, while parodying everything else that makes a good Eurovision act, slots in a key change reference just before the fake snow (and the burning fake piano).
• Exaggerated in "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder" by Die Toten Hosen. It steps up a half-tone and gets more speed twice in each verse (which is always the same eight lines of lyrics and very pointless), as in every eight bars, until the truck crashes against physical barriers. The song goes through way more than an octave worth of key changes. Near the end, the tape is sped up on top of even more gear changes.
• In Caddicarus, after getting blackout drunk to deal with having to play Rascal, Caddy changes the channel to MrCaddyPasta and makes up his own SCP which is a music box that plays Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi in full CD quality but kills everyone around it with lasers upon reaching the key change because of how awful it is.
• "Hit Song to Save the World" by Kollektivet invokes this as part of its broader parody of overproduced pop songs:
  Can we modulate this?
  Of course we can fucking modulate this!
• Tim Minchin's "Three Minute Song" lampshade this: "I need a little happy clappy country song / Nice and repetitive, but not too long / Boring enough, but not too boring, with a key change here to prevent the snoring"
• In The Goes Wrong Show episode "The Spirit of Christmas", one of the characters sings a song from the perspective of a little girl writing a letter to Santa in which, due to an off-stage error, the song changes pitch almost immediately... and then keeps on doing it, until it reaches the point where she's practically screeching every single line apparently in pain. Ironically, according to backstage information the actress in question (Bryony Corrigan) apparently has incredible vocal range, meaning that the producers had to really ramp up the pitch in order to get the desired effect.
• Zigzagged in Sally Shapiro's "Christmas Escape", which shifts down a whole tone for the second verse and chorus, but modulates back up for the finale.

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