Tjyylli

[Chorus:]

Bb                                     Eb

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time

                                           Bb

'Till touch down brings me roung again to find

                                   Eb

I'm not the man they think I am at home

           Bb              C

Oh no, no, no, I'm a rocket man

Eb                                         Bb

Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone

Simple question here but want to know what the better option would be. In the chorus to Elton John's "Rocket Man" (in B-flat major), there is a C major chord.

Would it be best to analyze the C major chord as V/V, or as a borrowed chord from B-flat lydian, or something else?

I don't know if it is a good option to analyze a chord as a secondary chord unless it resolves to that chord (or as a deceptive resolution, ex. V/V to vi/V).

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks.

To answer the question of whether the C chord is "really" V of V, you need to remember one simple fact about music.

When you listen to music, you hear it progressing in time.

Therefore, analysing any chord in terms of "what comes after it" by looking at the score is just an intellectual exercise, if it has no relationship to what the music actually sounds like. A description like "V of V" only makes sense if the listener expects to be hearing common practice functional harmony, but that's not what the song is about.

The chorus starts with a Bb chord, followed by an Eb chord over the same Bb bass note. The cumulative effect of the Bb and Eb/Bb chords in fact destablilizes Bb as the "tonic" - we are used to hearing harmonic progressions that progress somewhere!

So when the C chord arrives, at last we have a progression! We don't know where we are progressing to yet, because we haven't heard what comes next, but at least we are going somewhere.

… except that actually we don't go anywhere, because the next chord is right back to Eb and then Bb again. But hey, that C was a nice surprise while it lasted.

You can replace the C with virtually any major chord get a similar effect. Try Db major, D major, Gb major, or G major, for example.

Bottom line: this isn't functional, common-practice harmony. Good luck trying to invent a functional-harmony name for a Db or Gb chord here, but they work as music. Elton John just happened to pick C instead. Maybe his backing band haven't learned Db or Gb chords yet … (just joking, of course).

The other answers make the important points about analysis.

Not a secondary dominant V/V, because it isn't functioning as a dominant. The upper case II will provide a Roman numeral analysis symbol to show it is a major triad.

Some people call I II IV I a Lydian II progression and it's fairly common in pop/rock.

But, I want add one other point: notice the symbolism of that chord in relation to the lyrics. We have a root progression up by step from Bb to C and the normally minor ii has the third raised to make a major triad II. The C chord doesn't resolve in a typical functional way. You could say the chord goes up but doesn't come back down! That musical symbolism at the moment the lyrics say "...rocket man!" explains a lot about the emotional meaning of the chord when they don't fulfill the standard harmonic expectations.

Somedays ago I've read somewhere that the Beatles had written many songs in modal harmony and not in major/minor. Looking at the chord progression my first association here has also been: Beatles. Yes, like others saying: Eight days a week!

So as there are certainly modal elements here ... it doesn't make sense to analyse it in RNA.

Except you could understand this solution: I-II-IV-I

my argumentation:

When I studied at Swiss Jazz School in the late sixties they didn't use the signs ii,iii, iv for minor chords. The notation was IIm, VIm etc. And the secondary dominant progression C-A7-D7-G7 was written as I-VI-II-V as a variant of I-VIm-IIm-V7 (I-vi-ii-V7). I know there are still different systems of writing chord progressions in Jazz.

I'm going to go against the grain with other answers here and say that the C is in fact a V/V since it does in fact resolve to a V, albeit momentarily. Listening to the recording, there's a momentary F in the piano before resolving to Bb which serves as the V/V-V-I resolution we're expecting. It also make sense to play it this way as the voice leading is no longer parallel.

This is also more pleasant to the ear than an unresolved C in the middle of an (admittedly key vague) piece. You'll find that if you play the chords without putting some leading tones in between C and the next chord (Bb again) it sounds quite odd. It's certainly odd to hang out on the V/V, and this provides a certain tension, but I think it's quite functional in terms of the harmony.

I should also point out that this answer doesn't invalidate other answers, and it's entirely subjective really - all music is. However, I hear the V fairly well despite the fact that it's buried in the mix, and I want to say that it makes just as much sense to my ears.