Killing Me Softly With His Song by Roberta Flack Lesson

Song Lessons Grade 2 Songs
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Learn to play Killing Me Softly With His Song by Roberta Flack on JustinGuitar!


View the full lesson at Killing Me Softly With His Song by Roberta Flack | JustinGuitar

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I really like her voice, it is pretty ^ w ^

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I’ve been looking at Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly from an old guitar learning book from 20-25 years ago. I’ve also watched Justin’s lesson for the song. In the book, the song is in the key of C. Justin has a capo on the first fret for the Roberta Flack version but he says for the Fugees version- play it without a capo.

These are Justin’s chorus chords
Em Am D G Em A D C G C Fmaj7 E

These are from the book
Am Dmin7 G C Am D G F C F Bb A

The same chord substitutions are used in the verse. For the last bar of the verse Justin has B7 and the book has E

Is Justin’s version in the key of G ?

The reason I ask is because the book has the melody notes and I want to play the melody but I’m not sure which key I should use. I’ve confused myself. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks in advance
David

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David, the chords you list for Justin’s lesson make it the key of E minor.
B7 is a borrowed chord from the parallel E major key. Borrowing V7 in minor keys is very common.
See my topic dedicated to borrowed chords.
E major at the end of the chorus is also borrowed, a special case called a Picardy third in which the minor tonic i chord is replaced by the major I chord.

The book is in the key of A minor with all comments equally applicable except it shows a borrowed V instead of a V7. The V and V7 are more or less interchangeable and either will work.

Hope that helps.
Cheers :slight_smile: Richard

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@Richard_close2u
I’m confused here Richard. If you play an Em shape with a capo at fret 1 you’re actually playing Fm.
Does that not mean the key would be Fm?

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@sairfingers
If the capo is at fret 1 then yes.

The capo is a movable beast so I analysed based only on the chord names listed in the question asked by @BurnsRhythm.

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@Richard_close2u @sairfingers

Thanks guys.
I’m a bit out of my depth here. Been mulling over Richard’s reply and eventually worked out that the Fugee version is in Em so with capo on 1 the original Roberta Flack must be in Fm.
My old guitar learning book must have put it in Am to keep the chords and melody notes simple.