Re: bVII—IV—I (NMC)
Funny thing, I was just thinking about this an hour ago, because of "Sgt. Pepper." I'm rerunning a list on facebook of albums that influenced me - an intriguing project from last year at this time, which I had to leave off when life intruded on fun. It was supposed to be ten albums but grew to fifty or so, because ... well, because. "Sgt. Pepper" was #10 on the list, and I was just getting started. It's coming up today, so it was on my mind.
And that song, with that chord progression, reminded me of other examples. My go-to is "All Right Now" by Free. Not only is the intro/travelling riff killer, but the chorus takes that and turns it into something even more. One of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs, "How Many More Times," uses it a lot, as the resolution of the chorus, and also quite dramatically in the coda. This bit of business got used a lot in the late 1960s. The Who, The James Gang, so many. When it started? I'll have to get back to you. But I'll bet it's in an Elvis song or two.
I wrote a song that was entirely that progression, in my first batch of songs, whilst in the throes of pre-teen lovelorn angst and also in imagined competition with The Beatles ("They ain't all that. I can write songs better than them.") That would place it in 1964, maybe 1965. This was before I even knew how to play an instrument, and three years before Mandolin Consciousness began. Indeed, I didn't know how to play it till the early 1970s. Oh, I knew how it went, I could hear it clearly in my mind, but I didn't understand the progression, being it's not enharmonic. I didn't correlate it with other songs I'd heard and kept hearing until I had some sort of "Aha" moment, and realized I had known it all along. It was also a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" moment. I'm saying all this not by way of averring I'm some sort of musical genius (some other time for that ), but to assert that that progression must have been around, on the airwaves or in the ambient ether, and it found its way into my mind. That is, I must have picked it up somewhere. I'll do some ruminating and see what I find.
PS: On a corollary note, when you have a chance. listen to the conclusion of Beethoven's 1st Symphony in C. It sounds for all the world like The Who, with this distinct F-C, G-C riff. Imagine Townshend slamming those chords.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
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