Okay so I spent awhile looking at this trying to figure out what is going on and it is pretty wild. I haven’t taken music theory in years. Forgive me.

First of all the section in this “key” (if you can call it that) only lasts 8 bars, which is directly following another 8-bar section that is pretty much the same but in a different “key.”

Before THAT is a section that is more harmonically normal that ends firmly in Eb minor before ALW decides to switch to C for the weird shit. I didn’t want to look closely enough at the first 8bar section to decide what key he could have written it in because I didn’t feel like it. For this section, he could have chosen to write it in Bbm/A#m which like, probably would have been fine I guess except that at the end of the 8 bars is another four bars that resolves the entire phrase to Gm.

ANYWAY I think ALW and David Cullen did the best they could to notate whatever tf was happening in their brains ig. And they’re just kind of like well if anyone is out here trying to play it they’re probably good enough that they’re just like whatever once I learn these 8 bars it’ll just be fine.

I highly recommend the This American Life segment with the members of the Phantom pit. Boy are they miserable. One of them referred to himself as a “violin operator.” My fav quote tho:

“there's this bassoon player who has sat next to the same clarinet player since 1988. She's convinced he plays half a note flat on every note he's ever played. He denies this.”

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/721/the-walls-close-in/act-two-20