Originally Posted By: Noel96
I see the first chord as Bbmb5 (Bbdim triad) with the A as a dissonance (as mentioned above) that resolves to the G in the following bar.
This to me was the "Lights on!" part of your feedback beyond anything! I'm still kicking myself for missing what now seems so obvious. By leaving it up to the melody to create that tension, you've saved me a great deal of headache. Btw, the soprano A->G is definitely the focal point of the melody, since in Icelandic the accent of every word is always on the first syllable. So makes even more sense that the melody should be allowed to take care of that bit.
Originally Posted By: Noel96
Because of the pedal point, it's also possible that Bb in the bass is the dissonance that resolves downwards to A in bar 4. A diminished chord is not a usual way to begin pedal point but, if it works, it works.
I'm actually now leaning towards not following the pedal point(s) of the vocals (see reasoning re the soprano above) and just suffice with it 'as is' in the vocals, so we get something like

Bbdim (triad) - Edim7 - Cm7 - F7

This to me creates a more varied bass movement in the band, followed by the (to me) desirable IIm7-V7 resolution at the end leading nicely into the first chord of the verse (which starts with a Bb chord).

There's only one thing to do in crisis like this - Sleep on it!
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