Sometimes you just need a bit of escapism and spend an overwhelming 2 hours of pure entertainment on the big screen. Recently I saw Top Gun: Maverick in the theatre and it’s exactly that. This movie does many things extremely well, most important of which: it’s just a lot of fun.
The theme song of this movie, Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem, is interesting. It really feels like a national anthem, both in melody and harmony. The perfect fifth at the beginning feels like a stately and grand gesture, in line with the spirit of the movie:
What’s unusual though is that the re-iteration of the theme is in the key of Gb, a tritone (the “devil’s interval”) away from the original key of C major. It should be a jarring modulation, but it feels quite natural, and I don’t think I can think of any song that modulates this way (let me know if you find one that does!). It then modulates another tritone, ending back up in our original key of C. Sneaky!
Here’s my reharmonization of Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem. Replacing the soaring electric guitar with a gentle piano arrangement makes it almost like a children’s song, and I’ve leaned into that a bit.
