Trends Popular Progressions
TheoryTab / Papa Roach / Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)
Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)
Song Analysis

Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark) Chords and Melody

Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)
Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark) – Intro
Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark) – Verse
Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark) – Chorus

Related Music Concepts

Suspended Chords
A chord with built in tension and release
Song Stats Intro
Key D Major
Tempo 112 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Rock
Melody Range A2 – B3
Mood Smooth, Unexpected, Bright
Most Used Chord vi
Chord Complexity 42
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 85
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 0
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 85
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats Verse
Key D Major
Tempo 110 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Rock
Melody Range A2 – B3
Mood Unexpected, Bright
Most Used Chord vi
Chord Complexity 36
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 48
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 35
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 76
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats Chorus
Key D Major
Tempo 110 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Rock
Melody Range D3 – G4
Mood Tense, Simple, Bright
Most Used Chord vi
Chord Complexity 21
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 53
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 65
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 33
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats All Sections
Key D Major
Tempo 112 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Rock
Melody Range A2 – G4
Mood Unexpected, Bright
Most Used Chord vi
Chord Complexity 32
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity 69
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension 25
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 68
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts

About Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)

About the Key

About the Chord Progressions

Section Progression Songs with this progression
Intro
vi Vsus2
Basket Case by Green Day
Out From Under by Britney Spears
Genie by Girls' Generation
Say Yes by Elliott Smith
When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars
The Veldt by deadmau5
Desperado by Eagles
7,556 songs →
Verse
vi Vsus2
Tiny Dancer by Elton John
American Pie by Don McLean
Downstream by Braid Soundtrack
Ever Ever After by Carrie Underwood
Always by Erasure
I'll Make Love To You by Boyz II Men
The Veldt by deadmau5
7,556 songs →
Chorus
IV V vi I IV V vi
Not gonna get us by Tatu
Ride It by Maan
King Of Wishful Thinking by Go West
Digital Love by Daft Punk
Marvin's Room by Drake
Heaven by Dj Sammy
You're On My Mind by Imposs Ft J Perry
162 songs →

About the Melody

Melody data is compiled from all analyzed melody sections, so depending on how a user analyzed a song, "melody" might include instrumental notes.

𝄞 𝄢
A2 – G4
Melody range across 22 semitones
0.99 beats/note
Across 120.0 beats of melody
Stepwise Motion
Jumpiness
Repeaty
100% Diatonic
Percentage of notes within the song's key.
63% Chord Tones
Percentage of notes that fall on a chord tone of the underlying harmony.
Mixed Consonance
How smoothly the melody blends with the harmony (0 = dissonant, 1 = consonant).
Loose Syncopation
How often the melody emphasizes off-beats. Higher = more syncopated.

About the Metrics

Chord Complexity
Chord Complexity tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
Melodic Complexity reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
Chord-Melody Tension quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Progression Novelty
Chord Progression Novelty measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Chord-Bass Melody
Chord–Bass Melody evaluates how smoothly the bass moves between chords, scoring higher when it travels step-wise, ascending or descending, instead of jumping directly between root position chords.

Hooktheory's metrics are calculated against the entire database of analyzed songs, where 50 is the "average song." Learn more about each of these metrics here.

Chord Complexity
32
Measures how diverse and sophisticated the chord vocabulary is in this song.
Percentile: 32/100 — below average
Melodic Complexity
69
Measures the range, intervallic variety, and rhythmic complexity of the melody.
Percentile: 69/100 — above average
Chord-Melody Tension
25
Measures how much the melody notes clash or harmonize with the underlying chords.
Percentile: 25/100 — below average
Chord Prog. Novelty
68
Measures how unusual or unexpected the chord progressions are compared to common patterns.
Percentile: 68/100 — above average
Chord-Bass Melody
64
Measures the melodic movement of the bass notes across chord changes.
Percentile: 64/100 — above average

Metrics Radar Chart

Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)Average Song

BPM Comparison

Melody Distribution

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Melodic Intervals

Distribution of note-to-note jumps in semitones (negative = downward, positive = upward)

Note Durations

How long each note is held (in beats)

Syncopation

How many notes fall on each level of metric strength (0 = on-beat, higher = increasingly off-beat)

Level 0
Notes that fall on the downbeat — the strongest metric position in the measure.
Level 1
Notes on a secondary strong beat (e.g. beat 3 in 4/4) — still firmly on the grid.
Level 2
Notes on the remaining primary beats (2 and 4 in 4/4) — moderate metric weight.
Level 3
Notes on eighth-note offbeats — between the primary beats. Audibly syncopated.

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Everything you need to know about TheoryTab.

TheoryTab is the world's largest database of songs analyzed by their chord progressions and melodies. Each entry breaks a song into its harmonic and melodic components using relative notation, making it easy to see the music theory behind any song.
TheoryTabs are crowd-sourced and community-maintained. Musicians use Hookpad — our intelligent music sketchpad — to transcribe songs by ear, identifying the chords and melodies and entering them in a standardized format that anyone can read and learn from.
Roman numerals represent chords by their position in a key rather than by letter name. For example, in the key of C major, I = C, IV = F, V = G, and vi = Am. This relative notation makes it easy to compare chord progressions across songs in different keys. Click here to learn more about relative notation.
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Relative notation describes chords and notes by their function within a key, rather than by their absolute pitch. This means a I–V–vi–IV progression is the same pattern whether the song is in C major, G major, or any other key — making it much easier to recognize common patterns across songs.