The 50s progression is a chord progression used in Western popular music.[1] As the name implies, it was common in the 1950s and early 1960s and is particularly associated with doo-wop. It has also been called the Ice-cream changes[2] and the "Stand by Me" changes[3] in English and Aku Ankka-kierto (Donald Duck progression) in Finnish.
The progression is:
I vi IV V
for example, C Am F G (in C) 
Play, ending with C (help·info). In this case C is I, the tonic.
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Origin
The probable origin, at least one of the earliest examples, occurs in Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina" in F, Op. 36, No. 4, third movement, a simple piece for beginning pianists with which Richard Rodgers would very likely have been familiar. These few measures also feature the often-used arpeggiated chords heard in many songs of the 1950's.
Perhaps the first popular song to use the progression was "Blue Moon", composed by Rodgers and Hart in 1934.
Variations
As with any other chord progression, there are many possible variations, for example turning the dominant or V into a V7, or repeated I vi progression followed by a single IV V progression. A very common variation is having ii substitute for the subdominant, IV, creating the ii-V-I turnaround.
Examples
Examples include the Penguins' "Earth Angel" (1954), Ritchie Valens' "Donna" (1958), Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl" (1962)[2] as well as "Stand by Me" (1961).
Songs that use the 50s progression are usually very catchy, so the 50s progression has been used by many songs over the last half century.
Walter Everett argues that "despite the unusual surface harmonic progressions," in The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967), "the structural basis of the song is I-VI-IV-V-I."[4]
In the musical Grease, the song "Those Magic Changes" features this progression, and the notes (substituting G7 for G) are sung as part of the chorus.
Other well known songs that use the 50s progression
- Beauty School Dropout
- Blue Moon
- Boston
- Changes — David Bowie
- Complicated
- Diana — Paul Anka
- Enola Gay
- Every Breath You Take
- For Sentimental Reasons
- Heart and Soul
- Jesus of Suburbia
- Last Kiss
- The Living Daylights
- Mysterious Girl
- Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
- Perfidia
- Poor Little Fool
- Sh-Boom
- She Will Be Loved
- Stand By Me
- Superman
- Tears On My Pillow
- Those Magic Changes
- Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Sources
- ^ For example: "Acoustic Lesson 11B - Basic Chord Progressions", GuitarLessonInsider.com.
- ^ a b Review: [untitled]. Dane Harwood. Ethnomusicology, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 491-493. Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology
- ^ "The So-Called 'Flattened Seventh' in Rock". Allan Moore. Popular Music, Vol. 14, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 185-201. Published by: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ "Fantastic Remembrance in John Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever" and 'Julia'". Walter Everett. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 3 (1986), pp. 360-393. Published by: Oxford University Press.
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