Manfred Mann's Earth Band's "Don't Kill It Carol"

This morning, I also listened to The Best of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.  I don’t really know anything at all about them, except “Blinded by the Light” and Manfred Mann’s earlier version of Bob Dylan’s “Quinn the Eskimo.”

I found “Don’t Kill It Carol” interesting from a compositional point of view.  A lot of songs are based on the tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant chords, and some songs do that same sort of thing with musical phrases.  So, the song would have a phrase based on the tonic chord, and then the same phrase but based on the sub-dominant chord, and then on the dominant chord.  The bass parts in a lot of songs from the ’50s are like this.

"Don’t Kill It Carol" leads you into thinking that it’s going to do that, and then it doesn’t.  It starts with a phrase in A minor, which is then repeated.  Then, it moves to D minor - the sub-dominant (I think; I haven’t dealt with sub-dominants in minor scales before), and it starts repeating the same phrase, but then it changes.  It starts out as if it’s going to be a simple three-chord song, but then that changing phrase takes it somewhere else.