After Dr Chong mentioned about Plagal Expansions in lesson last Tuesday, I couldn’t resist putting this song up here – Lady Madonna. So I’ll just have to put Eleanor Rigby on hold for the moment!
As you can see in fig. 11 above, the song starts with a plagal expansion of I-IV-I-IV-etc. and ends that phrase with VI-VII-VIII, completely avoiding out V. This deliberately creates tonal ambiguity.
Towards the middle of the song, it modulates to Cmaj where Cmaj is briefly established by an imperfect cadence. It then shifts back to plagal expansions in Amaj.
The Dominant of Amaj is finally used as seen in b.39-40 in fig.13 above. A suspension is used but it is not resolved the conventional way. It is a suspension followed by retardation (resolution upwards). But whatever the case, it definitely feels more comfortable and stable after being established in Amaj with the use of V after being tonally ambiguous throughout the whole song. This is further emphasized with a sudden increase in note values for these 4 bars. The whole song is slowed down and chord V becomes more prominent, confirming the tonal center.
At the end of the song, one would usually expect a resolution of sort in the home key. However this is not the case here. (fig. 12) Even though the chords provided says E7sus – A, it does not seem like a V7-I to me. I would think its iio7-I. Am I right by saying this?
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