Cee Lo Green, “Forget You” (2010)

This song was presented in an earlier contextual listening example, where we explored the major pentatonic scale. Now we turn our focus toward the idiomatic use of harmony here. The Lydian progression, which is quite prominent in popular music, uses a major version of the supertonic chord, hence its name "Lydian," which references the church mode with the raised-fourth scale degree. Indeed, the ♯4 ˆ is included in the supertonic chord here. You may be tempted to analyze this chord as a secondary dominant (or applied chord), namely  ^V — V. In the context of a Lydian progression, however, it is best analyzed as "II" because this chord does not function in the same manner as its common-practice counterpart.

Songs featuring the Lydian progression include: Queen’s “It’s a Kind of Magic,” the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week”, Lulu’s “To Sir With Love,” Blues Image’s “Ride Captain Ride,” Anne Murray’s “You Won’t See Me,” and many others.