[Smt-talk] Tritone subs and the subtonic neighbor

[Michael Buchler]

Dear Dmitri and all,

Sorry for coming late to this question. I don't claim much knowledge  
of popular music from the 1920s and earlier, but it strikes me that  
one songwriter who used a lot of sliding chromaticism was Irving  
Berlin. His well-known song "Always" (1925) immediately comes to mind  
as a place where he used sliding chromaticism as a clever (some might  
say cheap) way to move away from or back to tonic. The one-bar  
transition that takes us from "Days may not be fair, Always" to  
"That's when I'll be there, Always" transports us from a tonic chord  
in FM to V7 of ii via parallel motion dominant seventh chords (F7,  
E7, Eb7, D7). On the one hand, we could write that off as a non- 
functional passage, but we could also say that the last motion (the  
return to functionality) represents a tritone substitution.

A better case can be found in Berlin's "All by Myself" (1921), which  
ends with the progression CM, Am, Dm, Db7, CM (that's the last two  
bars, comprising the second ending -- which means that it follows the  
song's structural dominant. In other words, the tritone sub comes at  
a place where plagal and authentic motions are both conventional.)

Again, I haven't looked at a lot of Berlin songs, but his music seems  
like good territory to mine for such chromatic adventures.

Also, since Walt Everett brought up Frank Loesser's "Luck be a Lady"  
from *Guys and Dolls* (1950), I can't help but chime in when he asks:

> "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" is built over a rumbling alternation of I  
> and bII that I think carries on over a ^1 pedal (or maybe the pedal  
> sustains in upper voices).  I hear neighbors in a modal context,  
> but how many would hear this as necessarily a V sub?  (There may be  
> others in the show; this example comes to mind first--my 13-yr-old  
> was just Nicely Nicely Johnson for two perfs--boy, was that fun!)


There's no tonic pedal here -- at least not in the original  
(consulting the published vocal score and the original handwritten  
conductor's score) -- but that "rumbling alternation of I and bII"  
certainly is there. I do hear that as an example of tritone sub, but  
also as a persistent neighboring motion. I don't see why this would  
be an either-or situation. Certainly we commonly call V65 both a  
(weak) dominant and also a neighboring chord. I'd put this in the  
same category; indeed, if anything, I think that the even-numbered  
bars in the chorus of "Luck be a Lady" carry an even stronger  
dominant function than do weak inverted dominants that prolong the  
tonic through neighboring or passing motions, but that's just my  
opinion. (Incidentally, kudos to Walt on raising a Nicely-Nicely --  
I'm sure he rocked... the boat.)

I'll offer up two earlier Frank Loesser tritone subs, and then pose a  
question of my own:

In the hit 1937 song "The Moon of Manakoora" (lyrics by Loesser,  
music by Alfred Newman) from the film *The Hurricane,* there's lots  
of pseudo exotic descending chromatic motion throughout the refrain  
and the song ends with a bona fide tritone sub at "And you'll be in  
my arms once more." But this is a case of a tritone substitute for a  
secondary dominant (V7/V) rather than a tritone substitute of the  
primary dominant (the song ends with the progression: B7, Bb7, EbM).  
Some might protest that the B7 chord is merely a "misspelled" German  
augmented-sixth chord. However, the voice leading conforms to my  
expectations of tritone substitution. Again, I can hear the protests  
that it's merely an augmented-sixth chord with an elided  
resolution... but where do we draw the line? If we allow such beasts  
into our pantheon of tritone subsitutions, then I think we could  
easily look back to Victor Herbert and Rudolf Friml to find similar  
substitutions. The only real difference involves placement within the  
phrase (and that is a significant difference).

In Loesser's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" (1947), there is a  
very clear tritone sub in the transition from the first phrase of the  
refrain to the second.  At bar 8 of the refrain, we have an imperfect  
authentic cadence, landing on I6 (FM6), which slides down to Gm7 
(ii7), Gb7(Vsub), and F (at bar 9, marking the beginning of the  
second phrase).

I confess that I'm only bringing up that song as a transition to  
another question. Frank Loesser sometimes used the subtonic triad as  
a neighbor to the (major) tonic. In refrain measures 1-3 of "What Are  
You Doing New Year's Eve," the harmonic progression is FM (tonic),  
EbM, FM (lyrics: "Maybe it's much too early in the game, Ah, but I  
thought I'd..."). He also used this subtonic neighbor even more  
memorably at the beginning of "The Inch Worm" from *Hans Christian  
Andersen* (1951) (lyrics: "Inch Worm [tonic], Inch Worm [subtonic],  
Measuring the [tonic] marigolds [subtonic], You and your [tonic]...")

My question: does anyone here know how long the neighboring subtonic  
has been used in popular music? Feel free to e-mail me privately.

Thanks!

Michael

-----------------------------------------------------------
Michael Buchler
Associate Professor of Music Theory
Florida State University College of Music
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