key: A minor/aeolian
mode: A B C D E F G
melody: M S l t d r m
form: verse-chorus
meter: duple
English function names: tonic subtonic
Tagg (modified): home counterpoise (away)
Riemann: t dP
Scale degrees: i VII
Chords: Am G verse:
Am G Am
|:/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / :|
chorus:
Am G Am G Am
|/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |I only had a vague familiarity with this song when it came up on a list of songs with only two chords. I don't know if I heard it growing up (there was plenty of "classic rock" around, thanks to WGIR and WAAF) or if I heard as an exchange student in Germany, where this song was quite popular.1 In fact, this song was so popular in Europe there are plentiful covers of it in different languages, some of which I will list below. Reviewing some of the other tracks on the album, I can see why the folk ballad became a huge hit. The other songs are all over the map: metal, prog rock, liberal use of falsetto singing, an orchestra. 1971, man.
With this song we're looking at a set of minor-ish songs using the tonic-subtonic relationship. Being orthodoxically Classical about it, it ain't a "true" minor without a "true" dominant chord created by raising the seventh scale degree up a semitone to create a leading-tone back into the tonic. We teach these things as if they are dicta from on high, but we know from looking through Medieval and Renaissance music (and reading the contemporary theory) that this particular phenomenon that seems like a law now was a long process, determined primarily by a combination of taste and performance practice, in the way that the "laws" of all styles develop. It's only in hindsight, after learning a lot of music, that we can make up these "laws" or "rules."
Does it help to distinguish between supposed "true" minor and "minor-adjacent" modes like aeolian and dorian? With my students, no. We just don't have the time and inclination to make it worth it. It's once a week for 45 minutes, for pete's sake. It's best for us to spend it playing and writing our own songs. Naming is helpful and important, even if it's just to say we are using these pitches and not those. Ultimately, we want to be able to hear and anticipate, and naming can be a useful part of that learning process.
other recordings:
Blackmore's Night, A minor. Dancer and the Moon. earMUSIC. A curious mix of rock-ish, Celtic-ish, Medieval-ish, and soul-ish elements.
Lemon, A minor. Vanha Vakaa. WM Finland. In Finnish.
Caterina Caselli, D minor. In Italian.
Arakain, Ab minor. In Czech.
I remain amazed at what is big in Germany, particularly Smokie's "Living Next Door to Alice" and Zappa's "Bobby Brown" — two songs I never, ever, ever, ever heard on the radio in the US, but every German knows them. I cannot in good conscience recommend that you listen to either of them.