Adam Neely, owner of a Youtube channel of the same name¹, asked a question on Twitter which is ludicrously simple to ask but incredibly difficult to answer.
It was thus:
Fav modulations?
- @its_adamneely, 7th Apr 2021²
To answer this, you need to know what a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rB0pHI9fUin music is. The short answer is that modulation is a change from one tonality, which can either be a tonic change or a tonal centre change, to another tonality. The usual method and reason for doing this is a key change which is used to build a crescendo at the end of a piece of music, or as a device within the music itself as a marker between the various parts (like the chorus, verse, coda etc).
Get it? Got it? Good.
Let me submit "Penny Lane" by the Beatles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rB0pHI9fU
According to Wikipedia, that great font of all knowledge, "Penny Lane" begins in the key of B major. I tried to think about this in B major and to be honest, I can not wrap my head around any of the chords in this song if this is the case. Since I am rubbish at music, then what I think as the tonal centre of this song is actually a whole step below in A. If Penny Lane is in A major then as far as I understand it, it makes more sense.
Verse:
A, F#m, Bm, E7.
(I vi ii V)
I vi ii V looks incredibly normal and is what we call the Doo-wop changes. Doo-wop songs include "Get A Job" by the Silhouettes, "Blue Moon" by The Marcels, and "Earth Angel" by Marvin Berry & The Starlighters.
Doo-wop changes work well in music because they have what's know as a walking bass; which in 4/4 time means that you get a nice steady kind of beat (hence the term 'walking'). They are as boring as get out for drummers and bass players; which probably might explain why Paul McCartney was able to write so many songs. He could basically goof off while John and George did the difficult work of playing music.
What's interesting but not surprising is that an identical walking bass line to what is used in Penny Lane is also used in several beds for the television series Thomas The Tank Engine. I very much doubt that Paul McCartney had any input to the soundtrack of that series but as it was narrated by Ringo Starr, there is at least a connection there.
If the verse is in A major, then the Chorus changes to something that I don't even understand.
Chorus:
G, Bm, C... E7?
(I iii IV ... E7 is doing what?)
I have no idea what the function of E7 is in G. E minor would be the vi chord but E7?
In the verses, I starts off. vi and ii what to take you somewhere and V wants to resolve back to the I chord; which happens at the beginning of the next bar. As a four chord loop, it works very well.
In the chorus though, we have a I chord as the tonal centre, a iii chord which is a mediant chord and is very weak pre-dominant which means that it wants to point to somewhere else. The IV chord which is a subdominant chord (think of a V chord but in the other direction) and this E7 doing... something that I don't even recognise. If it has a function then I simply do not know what it is, except to act as a pointer.
Wikipedia thinks that the E7 acts as a "IV chord in the preceding B key and a V in the looming A key" except that that analysis makes sense if the two keys are B and A but then literally none of the chord changes do.
If the verse is in B then the Doo-wop changes should read:
B, G#m, C#m, F#
(I vi ii V)
Except that's not being played at all. If the verse is in B then F# as the fifth should be the place that directs you to go back to the I chord, except that last chord is very obviously lower. Likewise, if the chorus is in A, then E7 is obviously the V chord (dominant seventh) but again, I find it ridiculous that you can play a thing in a key without ever playing the I chord of that key as by definition, the I chord defines the key you are playing in.
Both the verses and choruses are terminated by a coda with the lyrics of 'meanwhile back'. This sequence of notes can be played in any chord that you like and even in the wrong key for this song because what it's doing is a simple chromatic turnaround. These three notes are of the form iii-ii-I which as it ends on a I chord is always resolved. One of the reasons why Penny Lane is able to carry off modulation so effectively is that in having the terminating codas resolve, McCartney is then able to play whatever he likes and the chords won't go wrong (because it's not a northern song)
I think it nonsense that you can have a song played in a key with none of the chords in that key being played in the song. That's why I find this song so interesting as far as modulation goes. The whole song defies sensible analysis in the key that it's purported to be in and if it is reported in a key which is a whole step down, then it has a chord which belongs nowhere and still works.
¹https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamNeely/videos
²https://twitter.com/its_adamneely/status/1379642628686364672
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