Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom

The roots of secondary dominants do not always resolve down a perfect fifth to the tonicized chord. In many of the examples of popular music with secondary dominants at the beginning of this chapter, the secondary dominants resolve deceptively.

In “Yesterday,” the $\text{V}/\text{V}$ resolves not to $\text{V}$ but to $\text{IV}$, which sometimes acts as a substitute for the $\text{V}$ chord (the dominant) in popular music.

This progression also happens in “Forget You,” where a ${\text{V}}^7/\text{V}$ resolves to a $\text{IV}$ chord.

In “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick, the $\text{V}/\text{V}$ chord resolves to a subtonic ♭$\text{VII}$ chord in A major.

Remember, however, that the subtonic ♭$\text{VII}$ in major can act as a substitute for the dominant (see the Harmonic Flowchart for Popular Music with Subtonic $\text{VII}$ chord in Major).

In “Baby Love” by the Supremes, a ${\text{C}}^7/{\text{B}}^{♭}$ in C major (${\text{V}}_2^4/\text{IV}$) resolves to an ${\text{A}}^7$ chord (${\text{V}}^7/\text{ii}$), which then resolves to $\text{ii}$ ($\text{Dm}$). In this example, notice that the B♭ in the ${\text{C}}^7/{\text{B}}^{♭}$ is a lowered chromatic note that wants to resolve downward by half step to A. Instead of this A being the third of the $\text{IV}$ chord (an F major chord), which is the traditional and expected resolution, it is the root of an ${\text{A}}^7$ chord (${\text{V}}^7/\text{ii}$).

Finally, a rather common deceptive resolution of a secondary dominant is ${\text{V}}^7/\text{vi}$ to $\text{IV}$, which can be seen in the following three examples.

There are two ways to conceptualize this progression. The first is that the progression of $\text{iii}$ to $\text{IV}$ (Em to F in C major) is not unusual, so E to F, which appears to be $\text{III}$ to $\text{IV}$ but is in fact $\text{V}/\text{vi}$ to $\text{IV}$, is a chromatic modification of $\text{iii}$ to $\text{IV}$. The other way to think of $\text{V}/\text{vi}$ to $\text{IV}$ is as $\text{V}/\text{vi}$ to $\text{VI}/\text{vi}$, a deceptive progression within the submediant area.

We can conclude that secondary chords do not always resolve strictly to the chords they appear to be tonicizing.