chord question on beatles "lady madonna"

[t***@aol.com]

Hi,

I've been studying up on chord theory, and I've been playing a lot of
rock songs from fake books. I've been playing one by the beatles
called "lady madonna", but I have a question about the chords for the
song.

According to the fake book arrangement I have of the song, the song is
in the key of A., and I have checked out the chords of the song, to see
how they relate to the tonic and what role they play in the
progression.

But I'm curious about one part of the song, and I wonder if there is a
modulation to another key, as I'm not sure how well these chords relate
to the A major. The chords in question go:
<pre>
(Dm7) Friday night arrives without a
(G7) suitcase
(C) Sunday morning creeping like a
(Am)nun
(Dm7) Monday's child has learned to tie his
(Gm7)bootlace
(C) See
(Bm7) How They
(D/E) Run! (E7)

I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?

thanks,
Ty Steel

[Joey Goldstein]

Post by t***@aol.com
Hi,
I've been studying up on chord theory, and I've been playing a lot of
rock songs from fake books. I've been playing one by the beatles
called "lady madonna", but I have a question about the chords for the
song.
According to the fake book arrangement I have of the song, the song is
in the key of A., and I have checked out the chords of the song, to see
how they relate to the tonic and what role they play in the
progression.
But I'm curious about one part of the song, and I wonder if there is a
modulation to another key, as I'm not sure how well these chords relate
<pre>
(Dm7) Friday night arrives without a
(G7) suitcase
(C) Sunday morning creeping like a
(Am)nun
(Dm7) Monday's child has learned to tie his
(Gm7)bootlace
(C) See
(Bm7) How They
(D/E) Run! (E7)
I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?

Yes. Those 7.5 bars are in the key of C.
BTW That Gm7 is wrong. It's just G7 again.

Post by t***@aol.com
thanks,
Ty Steel

[Julio Laredo]

Post by Joey Goldstein

Post by t***@aol.com
Hi,
I've been studying up on chord theory, and I've been playing a lot of
rock songs from fake books. I've been playing one by the beatles
called "lady madonna", but I have a question about the chords for the
song.
According to the fake book arrangement I have of the song, the song is
in the key of A., and I have checked out the chords of the song, to see
how they relate to the tonic and what role they play in the
progression.
But I'm curious about one part of the song, and I wonder if there is a
modulation to another key, as I'm not sure how well these chords relate
<pre>
(Dm7) Friday night arrives without a
(G7) suitcase
(C) Sunday morning creeping like a
(Am)nun
(Dm7) Monday's child has learned to tie his
(Gm7)bootlace
(C) See
(Bm7) How They
(D/E) Run! (E7)
I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?

Yes. Those 7.5 bars are in the key of C.
BTW That Gm7 is wrong. It's just G7 again.

Chromatic third relationship. I like the sound of it.

[Greg G]

Post by t***@aol.com
<pre>
(Dm7) Friday night arrives without a
(G7) suitcase
(C) Sunday morning creeping like a
(Am)nun
(Dm7) Monday's child has learned to tie his
(Gm7)bootlace

Does it really say Gm7 here? I don't have the record handy, but I'm
hearing G7 in my head. A typo maybe?

Post by t***@aol.com
(C) See
(Bm7) How They
(D/E) Run! (E7)

Greg Guarino

[John Gutglueck]

Post by t***@aol.com
Hi,
I've been studying up on chord theory, and I've been playing a lot of
rock songs from fake books. I've been playing one by the beatles
called "lady madonna", but I have a question about the chords for the
song.
According to the fake book arrangement I have of the song, the song is
in the key of A., and I have checked out the chords of the song, to see
how they relate to the tonic and what role they play in the
progression.
But I'm curious about one part of the song, and I wonder if there is a
modulation to another key, as I'm not sure how well these chords relate
<pre>
(Dm7) Friday night arrives without a
(G7) suitcase
(C) Sunday morning creeping like a
(Am)nun
(Dm7) Monday's child has learned to tie his
(Gm7)bootlace
(C) See
(Bm7) How They
(D/E) Run! (E7)
I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?
thanks,
Ty Steel

You've made a good choice of a song to study, Ty. The modulation to
the bridge is really interesting in this one.

Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

In Lady Madonna, McCartney again begins the bridge with ii-V-I of the
new key, but now the new key is the flattened mediant. This works out
beautifully because the tonic chord (A major) on which the verse ends
is equivalent to the dominant of ii in the new key of C. The A major
chord resolves naturally to D minor, so the transition between verse
and bridge is seamless. The reinterpretation of the A chord as a
secondary dominant in the key of C is made all the smoother by the fact
that the verse has borrowed liberally from its parallel minor (A
minor), which is, of course, the relative minor of C major. In a way,
the verse has prepared us for the change of key in the bridge.

Look at the verse's final cadence:

hea - ven sent?
F G A
A: bVI bVII I

It uses, instead of the typical IV-V-I progression, the modal
bVI-bVII-I sequence. (The same cadential sequence that is heard in one
of McCartney's earlier songs, P.S. I Love You.) The F and G chords
don't naturally belong to the key of A major, but they *are* diatonic
to the key of C major as IV and V, so you can, retrospectively, hear
the end of the verse in C major as well as A major:

hea - ven sent? Friday . . . suitcase. Sunday . . . nun
F G A Dm G7 C Am
A: bVI bVII I
C: IV V V/ii ii V7 I vi

Contrast this with the transition to the bridge in Roy Orbison's Oh
Pretty Woman:

E7 Dm G C Am
Pretty woman stop a while. Pretty woman talk a while


Like Lady Madonna, Oh Pretty Woman is in A major and begins its bridge
with Dm-G-C-Am. But in Oh Pretty Woman, the verse doesn't borrow
from A minor at all, and it ends on the dominant E7 chord which, unlike
the tonic A chord, doesn't have a dominant relation to the D minor
chord. So when the Dm chord arrives to begin the bridge, it comes as
something of a jolt, and it takes the ear a while to adjust to the new
key.

--
John

[Tom K.]

Post by John Gutglueck
Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

Of course, there were many precedents in swing and bebop - Ellington's
"Satin Doll" and Parker's "Confirmation" to name a couple.

Tom K.

[John Gutglueck]

Post by Tom K.

Post by John Gutglueck
Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

Of course, there were many precedents in swing and bebop - Ellington's
"Satin Doll" and Parker's "Confirmation" to name a couple.
Tom K.

Thanks, Tom. I'm not too familiar with jazz. I'd be interested to
know what happens in the bridges of those songs.

I didn't mean to suggest that Lennon & McCartney were innovators in
this regard: there are plenty precedents in pop/rock as well. The
trick of beginning the bridge on ii-V-I (or ii-V-ii-V-I) of the
subdominant key enjoyed something of a vogue among the Brill building
songwriters in the early sixties.

Neil Sedaka used it in his last hit of the 60s, Bad Girl (1963).

Bad Girl was an attempt to write a "sideways" version of the
Shirelles' last hit, Foolish Little Girl (1963), written by Helen
Miller with Sedaka's lyricist, Howard Greenfield. Foolish Little
Girl has a subdominant key ii-V-I progression in the bridge, but I
believe (incidentally) some of its other harmonic and melodic (and
lyrical) features may have influenced a couple of early Beatles
songs--I'm thinking of Can't Buy Me Love and I Don't Want To
Spoil The Party.

Carole King used the trick in the Chiffons' One Fine Day (1963),
which may well have influenced I Want To Hold Your Hand. [Thanks, Ian
:-)]

Lee Pockriss used it in Shelley Fabares' Johnny Angel (1962), which I
suspect inspired Lennon & McCartney's very first use of it in From Me
To You (1963). The two songs are in the same key (C) and have similar
melodic motifs in the bridges.

Far from the Brill Building, the great Boudleaux Bryant used the trick
in Raining In My Heart, recorded by Buddy Holly in 1959 and covered by
the early Beatles in their stage act.

So far as I've been able to determine, the earliest use of ii-V-I to
begin a bridge in the subdominant key in a rock and roll song is found
in I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. The song was a huge hit for
Elvis Presley in 1956; the Beatles could hardly have been unaware of
it. It's also in C and may have influenced From Me To You. The
composers of the song, Ira Kosloff and Maurice Mysels, are sort of
obscure (to me, at least), but they were apparently pretty old-school
(Mysels belonged to a family of Tin Pan Alley composers--Sammy Mysels
was his brother), with roots in the pre-rock era. They may very well
have picked up the trick from an Ellington or a Parker.

--
John

[paramucho]

On 29 Jan 2006 06:06:00 -0800, "John Gutglueck"

Post by John Gutglueck

Post by Tom K.

Post by John Gutglueck
Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

Of course, there were many precedents in swing and bebop - Ellington's
"Satin Doll" and Parker's "Confirmation" to name a couple.
Tom K.

Thanks, Tom. I'm not too familiar with jazz. I'd be interested to
know what happens in the bridges of those songs.

Satin Doll--by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Johnny Mercer

Chords: Dm7 G7 Dm7 G7 Em7 A7 Em7 A7
Notes: A G A G A A G A B A B A B B A
B
Words: Cig-a-rette holder, which wigs ....

Chords: Am9 D9 Abm9 Db9 C
Notes: D C D Bb Ab Bb G
Words: Out cattin'.....

subsequent verses are the same. onto the bridge:

Chords: Gm7 C7 Gm7 C7b9 FM7 Gm7
Am7 Bbm7
Notes: G C Bb A G A Bb C Bb A G A Bb C
Words: She's no-bod-y's fool, so ....

Chords: Am7 D7 Am7 D7b9 G7
Dm7 G7
Notes: C D C B A B C D C B A B C D
Words: I'll give it a whirl, but I ....
http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/e/ellington_duke/satin_doll-crd.shtml

Post by John Gutglueck
I didn't mean to suggest that Lennon & McCartney were innovators in
this regard: there are plenty precedents in pop/rock as well. The
trick of beginning the bridge on ii-V-I (or ii-V-ii-V-I) of the
subdominant key enjoyed something of a vogue among the Brill building
songwriters in the early sixties.
Neil Sedaka used it in his last hit of the 60s, Bad Girl (1963).
Bad Girl was an attempt to write a "sideways" version of the
Shirelles' last hit, Foolish Little Girl (1963), written by Helen
Miller with Sedaka's lyricist, Howard Greenfield. Foolish Little
Girl has a subdominant key ii-V-I progression in the bridge, but I
believe (incidentally) some of its other harmonic and melodic (and
lyrical) features may have influenced a couple of early Beatles
songs--I'm thinking of Can't Buy Me Love and I Don't Want To
Spoil The Party.
Carole King used the trick in the Chiffons' One Fine Day (1963),
which may well have influenced I Want To Hold Your Hand. [Thanks, Ian
:-)]
Lee Pockriss used it in Shelley Fabares' Johnny Angel (1962), which I
suspect inspired Lennon & McCartney's very first use of it in From Me
To You (1963). The two songs are in the same key (C) and have similar
melodic motifs in the bridges.
Far from the Brill Building, the great Boudleaux Bryant used the trick
in Raining In My Heart, recorded by Buddy Holly in 1959 and covered by
the early Beatles in their stage act.
So far as I've been able to determine, the earliest use of ii-V-I to
begin a bridge in the subdominant key in a rock and roll song is found
in I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. The song was a huge hit for
Elvis Presley in 1956; the Beatles could hardly have been unaware of
it. It's also in C and may have influenced From Me To You. The
composers of the song, Ira Kosloff and Maurice Mysels, are sort of
obscure (to me, at least), but they were apparently pretty old-school
(Mysels belonged to a family of Tin Pan Alley composers--Sammy Mysels
was his brother), with roots in the pre-rock era. They may very well
have picked up the trick from an Ellington or a Parker.

Some great new examples there. I haven't checked all of them yet, but
"Johnny Angel" seems clear enough -- is that a 2nd inversion C7 in the
bridge -- didn't PM use that device in one of their bridges?

I don't recall it in "Raining In My Heart" but I'll have to check it
again.

"I Want You..." is a classic -- DonZ mentioned it a couple of years
ago IIRC.

Purple Patch bridges are a common device in otherwise utterly
predictable and tonally bland doowop songs -- "Blue Moon" being a
classic example.

[Tom K.]

Post by paramucho
On 29 Jan 2006 06:06:00 -0800, "John Gutglueck"

Post by John Gutglueck

Post by Tom K.

Post by John Gutglueck
Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

Of course, there were many precedents in swing and bebop - Ellington's
"Satin Doll" and Parker's "Confirmation" to name a couple.
Tom K.

Thanks, Tom. I'm not too familiar with jazz. I'd be interested to
know what happens in the bridges of those songs.

Satin Doll--by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Johnny Mercer
Chords: Dm7 G7 Dm7 G7 Em7 A7 Em7 A7
Notes: A G A G A A G A B A B A B B A
B
Words: Cig-a-rette holder, which wigs ....
Chords: Am9 D9 Abm9 Db9 C
Notes: D C D Bb Ab Bb G
Words: Out cattin'.....
Chords: Gm7 C7 Gm7 C7b9 FM7 Gm7
Am7 Bbm7
Notes: G C Bb A G A Bb C Bb A G A Bb C
Words: She's no-bod-y's fool, so ....
Chords: Am7 D7 Am7 D7b9 G7
Dm7 G7
Notes: C D C B A B C D C B A B C D
Words: I'll give it a whirl, but I ....
http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/e/ellington_duke/satin_doll-crd.shtml

A Roman numeral labeling of Ellington's bridge would then be:

F: [: ii7 - V7:] I {passing ii7, iii7, iv7}
G: [: ii7 - V7:] I(add7) C: ii7 - V7
or you could hear it as ii-V of IV followed by ii-V of V.

Charlie Parker's "Confirmation" is in F, the first three bars being: F -
Em7b5 - A7 - Dm, the same changes as the Beatles' "Yesterday" which was
written about 15 years later (except for the Bb in the 2nd chord). The
bridge is as follows:

Cm7 F7 Bbma7 Ebm7 Ab7 Dbma7
Bb: ii7 V7 I(add ma7) Db: ii7 V7 I(add ma7)
or ii-V of IV followed by ii-V of bVI.

Tom K.

[John Gutglueck]

Post by Tom K.

Post by paramucho
On 29 Jan 2006 06:06:00 -0800, "John Gutglueck"

Post by John Gutglueck

Post by Tom K.

Post by John Gutglueck
Typically, when a pop song has its bridge in a different key from that
of the verse, the bridge begins on the tonic of the new key. But early
on, the Beatles got away from that formula and developed a fondness for
beginning the bridge on the supertonic chord (ii) of the new key. You
can hear this in From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Yes It is,
and The Night Before. The bridges of those songs all begin ii-V-I in
the subdominant key. The delayed arrival of the new tonic chord
creates a nice sort of tension that you don't get from modulations
using the more traditional formula.

Of course, there were many precedents in swing and bebop - Ellington's
"Satin Doll" and Parker's "Confirmation" to name a couple.
Tom K.

Thanks, Tom. I'm not too familiar with jazz. I'd be interested to
know what happens in the bridges of those songs.

Satin Doll--by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Johnny Mercer
Chords: Dm7 G7 Dm7 G7 Em7 A7 Em7 A7
Notes: A G A G A A G A B A B A B B A
B
Words: Cig-a-rette holder, which wigs ....
Chords: Am9 D9 Abm9 Db9 C
Notes: D C D Bb Ab Bb G
Words: Out cattin'.....
Chords: Gm7 C7 Gm7 C7b9 FM7 Gm7
Am7 Bbm7
Notes: G C Bb A G A Bb C Bb A G A Bb C
Words: She's no-bod-y's fool, so ....
Chords: Am7 D7 Am7 D7b9 G7
Dm7 G7
Notes: C D C B A B C D C B A B C D
Words: I'll give it a whirl, but I ....
http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/e/ellington_duke/satin_doll-crd.shtml

F: [: ii7 - V7:] I {passing ii7, iii7, iv7}
G: [: ii7 - V7:] I(add7) C: ii7 - V7
or you could hear it as ii-V of IV followed by ii-V of V.
Charlie Parker's "Confirmation" is in F, the first three bars being: F -
Em7b5 - A7 - Dm, the same changes as the Beatles' "Yesterday" which was
written about 15 years later (except for the Bb in the 2nd chord). The
Cm7 F7 Bbma7 Ebm7 Ab7 Dbma7
Bb: ii7 V7 I(add ma7) Db: ii7 V7 I(add ma7)
or ii-V of IV followed by ii-V of bVI.
Tom K.

Thanks to both Ian and Tom for the charts and analyses, but I've got
to confess. Years ago, during a formative stage in my musical
development, I was traumatized by enforced exposure to large daily
doses of a blaring, chaotic jazz music, and I've suffered from a kind
of jazzophobia ever since. Listening to Satin Doll has gone some way
toward relieving my condition. I could, though with considerable
difficulty, make out something of what was going on in that piece and,
after a few hearings, even came to like it a bit. But listening to
Confirmation was, for me, like watching a Chinese movie without
subtitles. I couldn't pick out a single chord, and I was just
praying it would all be over soon. I guess I've got a long way to go
in my recovery. My hat's off to those of you who get that sort of
thing; I'm afraid I never will.

--
John

[John Gutglueck]

Post by paramucho
Some great new examples there. I haven't checked all of them yet, but
"Johnny Angel" seems clear enough -- is that a 2nd inversion C7 in the
bridge -- didn't PM use that device in one of their bridges?

I think I hear the bass playing the roots of both the Gm and the C7.
The harmonic rhythm quickens there, so you get just one bass note per
chord, unlike in the verse, where you get two, the second syncopated.
In the second half of the bridge, where Am alternates with D7, the
syncopation returns, so you get a brief Am/D effect in anticipation of
the D7. As for McCartney, you may be thinking of the bridge of I Want
To Hold, where the second time through he plays double stops, with the
A on the bottom of the Dm chord.

When I was 6 or 7 years old I used to watch the Donna Reed Show and had
a huge crush on Shelley Fabares.

--
John

[paramucho]

On 30 Jan 2006 02:48:19 -0800, "John Gutglueck"

Post by John Gutglueck

Post by paramucho
Some great new examples there. I haven't checked all of them yet, but
"Johnny Angel" seems clear enough -- is that a 2nd inversion C7 in the
bridge -- didn't PM use that device in one of their bridges?

I think I hear the bass playing the roots of both the Gm and the C7.
The harmonic rhythm quickens there, so you get just one bass note per
chord, unlike in the verse, where you get two, the second syncopated.
In the second half of the bridge, where Am alternates with D7, the
syncopation returns, so you get a brief Am/D effect in anticipation of
the D7. As for McCartney, you may be thinking of the bridge of I Want
To Hold, where the second time through he plays double stops, with the
A on the bottom of the Dm chord.
When I was 6 or 7 years old I used to watch the Donna Reed Show and had
a huge crush on Shelley Fabares.

Donna Reed was not exported down here -- so I was stuck with Annette
Funicello :-)

Meanwhile I checked "Raining In My Heart", and of course the
progression is there -- a classic example. A classic song that
connects back "It's Delovely" and forward to "Dear Prudence".

I don't recall having heard "Bad Girl" before. It clearly links to his
"Breaking Up Is Hard To Do". The "Breaking Up" bridge reads, in C:

{c F |c F |F d |F d }

{f C |f C |Ab |G }

And has the same call-response thing.

[John Gutglueck]

Post by paramucho
I don't recall having heard "Bad Girl" before. It clearly links to his
{c F |c F |F d |F d }
{f C |f C |Ab |G }
And has the same call-response thing.

I'd never heard Bad Girl myself until fairly recently. It's the
sort of thing you'd have gotten beaten up for listening to in the
neighborhood I'm from. My knowledge of rock and roll from before the
British invasion has always been kind of spotty, but in the last year
I've been trying, more or less systematically, to familiarize myself
with the music of the Elvis-Beatles "interregnum." I'm finding
that the songs of that period aren't nearly as insipid as they're
reputed to be, and even when they are, they can often be quite
interesting in light of later developments. I recently read Ken
Emerson's "Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the
Brill Building Era," which turned out to be a pretty good companion
to my research. In the book, Hank Medress (of the Tokens) is quoted as
saying:

"Neil [Sedaka] and Howie [Greenfield] would pick up Cash Box or
Billboard and they'd go down the chart, and because Neil was such a
great musician, he could take a song that was already a hit and write
it sideways. He'd just restructure it . . . He would literally play
the song that he was copying from and then start changing the
chords."

And Emerson himself observes:

"When imitating himself yielded steeply diminishing returns, he
[Sedaka] and Greenfield tried to imitate others: The Four Seasons'
Sherry on Sunny and, with Bad Girl, the hit Helen Miller and Greenfield
himself had written for the Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl."

The two songs do seem to have a sideways relation. Foolish Little Girl
is unusual in that its verse begins on iii. You can see how Sedaka
took Miller's iii-vi-iii-vi and made it over into the even more
unusual iii-V/ii-iii-V/ii to begin the verse of Bad Girl with a
tonicization of ii. In the bridge, he borrows not only from Foolish
Little Girl but, as you note, from his own Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.


What the bridges of all of the songs mentioned on this thread have in
common is a modulation (or modulations) effected by jumping to ii-V-I
(or ii-V-ii-V-I) in a new key. In Foolish Little Girl, Miller jumps
first up a fourth, putting ii-V-I into the subdominant key, and then up
a whole step, putting the same progression into the dominant key,
before returning to the home key for the repeat of the verse:

Foolish Little Girl

Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| v
IV:| ii V I vi ii V I vi iii
V: ii V I vi V7 I

This is the "classic" pattern found in I Want You I Need You I Love
You, Raining In My Heart, Johnny Angel, One Fine Day, and The Night
Before.

In Breaking Up, Sedaka goes the other way, first stepping down a whole
tone for a ii-V-ii-V-I in the subtonic key, then down another whole
tone to put the same progression in the flattened submediant key:

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| ib7
bVII:| ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I ib7
bVI: ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I

In the bridge of Bad Girl, Sedaka creates a hybrid of these two
approaches, first putting ii-V-ii-V-I into the subdominant key, then
stepping down a whole tone to repeat the progression in the flattened
mediant key:

Bad Girl

Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| v7
IV:| ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I ib7
bIII: ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I


To prepare for the return of the verse, he reverses direction at the
end of the bridge, ascending along a little chord stream to the
dominant chord of the home key:

bIII: I
I: bIII IV V

But of course, the V doesn't resolve directly to I, as you might
expect, because the verse begins on that strange iii. We don't
arrive at a tonic chord in the home key until the end of the verse.

One of the raps against the music of the interregnum is that it tends
to be formulaic. Well, I suppose nothing is more formulaic than a
ii-V-I progression, but Sedaka et al. exercised considerable ingenuity
in the use of that simple formula.


In the book Sedaka is quoted as saying:

"We sold records because our songs were musically solid and had more
than four chords. The bridge of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do is the first
time in rock 'n' roll that a minor seventh chord was used."

I'm not too sure about that last claim.

--
John

[J. B. Wood]

Post by John Gutglueck
"Neil [Sedaka] and Howie [Greenfield] would pick up Cash Box or
Billboard and they'd go down the chart, and because Neil was such a
great musician, he could take a song that was already a hit and write
it sideways. He'd just restructure it . . . He would literally play
the song that he was copying from and then start changing the
chords."

Hello, and I've always thought that Sedaka, unlike Anka, Carole King and
others, never got commensurate credit for his skills as a
songwriter/arranger. (You could probably say the same of Diane Warren
today) While I enjoyed all of his hit songs I really like that slowed down
version of Breaking Up that he did in the '70s. In an appearance on NBC's
SNL he performed it by first holding a transistor radio playing a few bars
of his original version then proceeded to play the new version on the
piano. The slow version makes a great solo piano piece, IMHO. Sincerely,

John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: ***@itd.nrl.navy.mil
Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375-5337

[paramucho]

On 1 Feb 2006 18:47:50 -0800, "John Gutglueck"

Post by John Gutglueck

Post by paramucho
I don't recall having heard "Bad Girl" before. It clearly links to his
{c F |c F |F d |F d }
{f C |f C |Ab |G }
And has the same call-response thing.

I'd never heard Bad Girl myself until fairly recently. It's the
sort of thing you'd have gotten beaten up for listening to in the
neighborhood I'm from. My knowledge of rock and roll from before the
British invasion has always been kind of spotty, but in the last year
I've been trying, more or less systematically, to familiarize myself
with the music of the Elvis-Beatles "interregnum."
I'm finding
that the songs of that period aren't nearly as insipid as they're
reputed to be, and even when they are, they can often be quite
interesting in light of later developments. I recently read Ken
Emerson's "Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the
Brill Building Era," which turned out to be a pretty good companion
to my research. In the book, Hank Medress (of the Tokens) is quoted as
"Neil [Sedaka] and Howie [Greenfield] would pick up Cash Box or
Billboard and they'd go down the chart, and because Neil was such a
great musician, he could take a song that was already a hit and write
it sideways. He'd just restructure it . . . He would literally play
the song that he was copying from and then start changing the
chords."
"When imitating himself yielded steeply diminishing returns, he
[Sedaka] and Greenfield tried to imitate others: The Four Seasons'
Sherry on Sunny and, with Bad Girl, the hit Helen Miller and Greenfield
himself had written for the Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl."
The two songs do seem to have a sideways relation. Foolish Little Girl
is unusual in that its verse begins on iii. You can see how Sedaka
took Miller's iii-vi-iii-vi and made it over into the even more
unusual iii-V/ii-iii-V/ii to begin the verse of Bad Girl with a
tonicization of ii. In the bridge, he borrows not only from Foolish
Little Girl but, as you note, from his own Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

There's also the opening recitative and the cheesy single note
lead-in. There are bits of "Foolish Little Girl" which remind of me
"Baby It's You" -- like the staccato snaps in the first line. It's
probably the singer.

Post by John Gutglueck
What the bridges of all of the songs mentioned on this thread have in
common is a modulation (or modulations) effected by jumping to ii-V-I
(or ii-V-ii-V-I) in a new key. In Foolish Little Girl, Miller jumps
first up a fourth, putting ii-V-I into the subdominant key, and then up
a whole step, putting the same progression into the dominant key,
Foolish Little Girl
Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| v
IV:| ii V I vi ii V I vi iii
V: ii V I vi V7 I
This is the "classic" pattern found in I Want You I Need You I Love
You, Raining In My Heart, Johnny Angel, One Fine Day, and The Night
Before.
In Breaking Up, Sedaka goes the other way, first stepping down a whole
tone for a ii-V-ii-V-I in the subtonic key, then down another whole
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| ib7
bVII:| ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I ib7
bVI: ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I
In the bridge of Bad Girl, Sedaka creates a hybrid of these two
approaches, first putting ii-V-ii-V-I into the subdominant key, then
stepping down a whole tone to repeat the progression in the flattened
Bad Girl
Verse | Bridge
I: V7 I| v7
IV:| ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I ib7
bIII: ii7 V7 ii7 V7 I
To prepare for the return of the verse, he reverses direction at the
end of the bridge, ascending along a little chord stream to the
bIII: I
I: bIII IV V
But of course, the V doesn't resolve directly to I, as you might
expect, because the verse begins on that strange iii. We don't
arrive at a tonic chord in the home key until the end of the verse.
One of the raps against the music of the interregnum is that it tends
to be formulaic. Well, I suppose nothing is more formulaic than a
ii-V-I progression, but Sedaka et al. exercised considerable ingenuity
in the use of that simple formula.

Formulas are at the core of rock -- a strength rather than weakness.
The Brill Building folk played around with standard progressions and
began to liberate them, but while they were essential to the path they
were mainly backward-looking, to Tin Pan Alley. Buddy Holly's path was
stronger.

Post by John Gutglueck
"We sold records because our songs were musically solid and had more
than four chords. The bridge of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do is the first
time in rock 'n' roll that a minor seventh chord was used."
I'm not too sure about that last claim.

Carole King would have something to say about that...

[J. B. Wood]

Post by paramucho
Donna Reed was not exported down here -- so I was stuck with Annette
Funicello :-)

Well, waaaay back in 1956 I wouldn't have minded being "stuck" with
Annette (with or without the mouse ears) ;-) Sincerely,

John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: ***@itd.nrl.navy.mil
Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375-5337

[John K. Graham]

"I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?"

thanks,
Ty Steel"

Ty, this mild key change is pretty tame, up to the minor version of the
fourth scale step. Good luck with the Nashville notation - I don't
think it covers such "exotic" variations as this - but then, I'm not
much into country music. You'd be better served with a different chord
analysis technique.

[**©©]

Post by John K. Graham
"I can see how the final chord relates to the overall key of the song,
as the E7 serves as a V7 cadence back to the A chord. But how do the
other chords fit into the progression, like the "Am" for instance, and
how would this be labeled in Nashville notation in relation to the
tonic chord? Is there a modulation here?"
thanks,
Ty Steel"
Ty, this mild key change is pretty tame, up to the minor version of the
fourth scale step. Good luck with the Nashville notation - I don't
think it covers such "exotic" variations as this - but then, I'm not
much into country music. You'd be better served with a different chord
analysis technique.

The bridge in Lady M would be considered a modulation to the
key of C maj.