Level: 3
Tuning: Standard

Cole Porter wrote "At Long Last Love" for the 1938 musical "You Never Know." The previous year, Porter was in a life-changing horseback riding accident that crushed his legs, and he claimed that while he was lying on the ground waiting for help, he got out a paper and pencil to work on the lyrics to "At Long Last Love." It's a 32-bar tune that begins with a 16-bar statement - then the first 4 bars of that statement are repeated, and the next 12 bars are a different melody and set of chord changes. It's worth noting that the last 8 bars are a standard ending to hundreds of songs from this era - in numbers it looks like this: 4, 4m, 3m, 6, 2, 5, 1. There are several jazzy chord substitutions in this key-of-Bb arrangement, in that 8-bar ending and elsewhere. For instance, in the accompaniment to the vocal, the Gb9 in the 8th bar is a passing chord, leading to F9; it's a flat five substitute for Cm7. The Ab13 in bar 24 is the same type of substitution (a flat fifth above Dm7b5. Similarly B7 in bar 15 is a flat five sub for the F7 that would normally go between Cm7 and Bb.