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Analysis of Light the Lanterns Guitar Composition -
A Deep Dive into the Modal Triad Evidence
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Introduction

This page is the final nail in the coffin of all those who think that Light the Lanterns is other than a late-60s song. All other guesses of its genre and time period can be categorically dismissed by the following analysis of the six simple chords which carry Light the Lanterns from beginning to end.

This is a page for those who know a bit about guitar chords and music theory, and also for those who want to understand why a song subconsciously captures certain emotions because of its underlying chordal structure. These conditions unequivocally lock in the song's genre and timeframe. For the guitar tabs alongside the lyric references, see Simon Hill's Page.

1. The Complete Rejection of 7th Chords

One fundamental harmonic feature defines the structural framework of Light the Lanterns. The composition contains zero dominant 7ths, major 7ths, or minor 7ths. The entire song is built exclusively upon 6 basic triads (G Major, F Major, A Major, D Major, E Major, F# Minor).

In the traditional 1960s acoustic folk revival songbook -- the "Hootenanny" and trad folk guitar style popularized by acts like The Seekers, Peter, Paul and Mary, early Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan -- the dominant 7th chords (A 7th, B 7th, C 7th, D 7th, E 7th, G 7th) were the common and mandatory resolution tools. They were the basic novice open-chord shapes used to create a clear, sweet, and predictable harmonic tension that resolved cleanly back to the root chord, keeping the song in the same key all the way through. A standard pop-folk tune written in those days would, for example, routinely rely on an E 7th chord to pull the melody back into an A Major tonic key resolution.

Light the Lanterns completely subverts this convention. It rejects that sweet, commercial resolution entirely, utilizing a normal, unextended E Major triad to resolve to the A Major tonic at the end of each chorus.

One reason for the easy and popular guitar chords of the 60s was the wide-necked acoustic guitars of the time. You had six strings and four fingers on the left hand to make the fullest chord you could, playing barre chords when you weren't right down the neck in the standard open-chord positions.

Then the electric guitar hit the folk scene -- specifically the infamous Fender Stratocaster. Who remembers the furore of Dylan's first Stratocaster rendition at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965?

From that moment onwards, folk chords changed forever. Dylan playing the Strat opened up a whole new electric-folk world because of its far thinner neck plus the fact that the folk brotherhood had been given permission to do so by The Guru. Guitarists no longer had to wrap their hands around a thick acoustic fretboard; they only had to grab a few strings anywhere on the neck and play melodic fills in between; and it left the fingers of the left hand more flexibility to extend chords into jazz shapes and tones.

2. Two Shifting Tonal Anchors and Moods: Why the Song Feels "Un-Based"

Instead of staying parked in one predictable chord-set of I - IV - V from start to finish, LTL keeps the listener emotionally suspended by constantly shifting its chordal home between two different chord sets.

After a somewhat odd Intro of G Major to F Major 3 times -- sounding like it is going to start in A Major -- the home key unexpectedly pops up to D Major for the first verse, which makes you feel that's the home key for the song.

On a standard-tuned guitar, an open D Major chord is inherently top-heavy and bright because you usually only strum the top four (maybe five) strings. It lacks a deeper 5th and 6th string bass root, leaving the verse feeling like it is floating in mid-air while it tells the first part of this unusual story.

The song then shifts the listener out of that bright upper space by plunging down to land on the darker, deeper F# minor chord in time with the spooky words "crazy ladies in (>E major) gingerbread houses". The next chord resolves to A Major, signalling a different home key for the chorus and the song's primary message of "(>A) light the lanterns for the shipwrecked sailors" (in A then D). The chorus continues its cheery tone and positive message of "celebrate ... " (x2) to finish on A Major, as if that's home.

Then verse 2 pops up to D Major again but this time it actually sounds more like a bridge than a new verse because D is the natural IV chord of A Major. And yet this bridge/verse doesn't resolve to D as the tonic. It resolves to A Major.

By swinging between an intro (ending in A), a first verse (in D), a chorus (in A), a bridge/verse (in D>A), the structure keeps you travelling forwards in unresolvedness. It maintains a continuous emotional tug-of-war until the final cadence finally ends on a satisfying A Major home. So what key is the song actually in? Answer: Not really A Major, not really D Major.

3. The West Coast Mixolydian Footprint

Because the songwriter oscillates between the note profile of the D major scale but also forces the harmonic tension to rest around the A chord, the underlying engine of the track is written in what's classified as  A-Mixolydian Mode.

From a technical standpoint, musicology explains exactly how this existential feeling is manufactured. In formal theory, this whole-step shifting of major chords (the flattened VII, the flattened VI, the natural I), is classified as a Double Plagal Sequence. 

Ah, but no-one listens to Light the Lanterns and thinks, "Oh, it's Mixolydian, I love Mixolydian Double Plagal." They listen and feel the melodies and chords the sonic story tells. This is not the early-mid 60s PP&M with their happy 7ths chords and stories about Puff the Magic Dragon (1963); nor Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind (1962); nor Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound (1966). It's something a few years more evolved in folk music. LTL is the sort of style that made late-60s Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Band, and The Byrds more innovative and effective musical storytellers. 

This specific harmonic footprint is highly time-sensitive:

The Counterculture Transition: This exact modal triad movement was pioneered and popularized between 1965 and 1970 by West Coast underground bands seeking a heavier, darker, and more serious atmosphere. By stripping away the sweet, commercial 7th chords of early-60s pop-folk, artists signaled a deliberate break away from mainstream folk acoustic music. With the change from an all-wooden sound, electric folk also changed the way chords were played and how songs were written around them.

The Amplification Factor: Pure major and minor triads were highly favored during this specific late-60s electric transition. Complex jazz or pop chord extensions (like 7ths, 9ths, or suspended positions) frequently sounded muddy or distorted when run through primitive tube amplifiers and recorded via live, single-room microphone setups. Also, the average pop listener's ear was not yet used to them.

4. Landmark Context: The 1967–1969 Paradigm Shift

The LTL songwriter was absorbing and replicating the exact innovations utilized by the most influential guitarists of the late-60s Bay Area transition. The absolute lack of 7th chords in favour of parallel, modal major triads places Light the Lanterns in the exact same pocket as several landmark tracks of that specific window:

Jefferson Airplane — "White Rabbit" (1967): Built entirely on raw, parallel major triads (F# > G > A) with zero 7th chords, weaponizing basic major shapes to create a hypnotic, non-resolving modal atmosphere.

Grateful Dead’s -- "Dark Star" (1968):  Built almost entirely on a continuous, hypnotic two-chord modal shift between A Major and G Major triads. By intentionally stripping away standard blues-pop dominant 7ths, the track achieves its signature open-ended, improvisational space-rock atmosphere.

The Byrds — "Lady Friend" (1967): Driven by roaring, unextended major triads moving in irregular bar lengths, explicitly designed to push the band away from their clean, early folk-pop origins.

5. Counter-Arguments Encountered

"But it sounds so much like 1980s Jangle Pop."

Well it does ... a bit. But the 80s Jangle Pop theory (bands like The Smiths, R.E.M., or The Bangles) is a textbook example of retrospective familiarity mistaking a historical root for its derivative. While Jangle Pop was explicitly characterized by clean, ringing guitar tones, its structural, harmonic, and technical DNA is completely incompatible with Light the Lanterns for these four objective, technical reasons:

The Chordal Complexity Gap: Jangle Pop relied heavily on complex chord extensions, specifically suspended chords (A sus², A sus⁴), major 7ths, and added 9th positions to create that signature shimmering, complex "jangly" texture. Johnny Marr (The Smiths) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) rarely played simple, block major triads moving in parallel steps. LTL uses exclusively raw major and minor triads with zero extensions, which is the antithesis of the 1980s Jangle Pop songwriting vocabulary.

The Rhythmic Strumming Paradigm:  Jangle Pop is characterized by highly syncopated, rhythmic scratching, or intricate, arpeggiated sixteenth-note picking patterns. LTL is driven by a continuous, non-syncopated, straight open-eighth-note acoustic strum. This is the unmistakable rhythmic footprint of a 1960s folk-revival background, not the post-punk rhythmic wave of the 1980s.

The Rickenbacker/Fender vs. Triad Tone: The jangle of the 80s was achieved through specific gear configurations: 12-string Rickenbackers or Fender Telecasters run through heavy studio compression and modern solid-state or clean amplifiers to achieve a glassy, bright top-end. The guitar work on LTL is a mid-heavy, acoustic-driven folk-rock arrangement with a dry, uncompressed mix.

The Complete Absence of 1980s Production Standards: By the 1980s, even the most primitive indie-pop bedroom demos utilized multi-track tape isolation, electronic drum machines, or distinct gated reverb/digital delay processing. The presence of dry drum production (snare and bass drum only, with no hi-hat or cymbals) in Light the Lanterns; live room microphone bleed; and an uncorrected, un-punched live vocal track completely rules out any 1980s recording origin.

The 1980s Jangle Pop movement was a conscious, historical revival of the mid-1960s West Coast sound. Commentators who mistake LTL with the 1980s are failing to recognize that they are looking at the original 1960s blueprint and confusing it with the decade that copied it.

 "But what if it's a late 1970s or early-1980s pastiche copycat?"

People often say this to me about my late 60s thesis. The circumstantial physical discovery of the tape in Los Angeles during the mid-1980s does not lend itself to any retro-copycat possibilities. A deliberate pastiche from this era would be a historical and technical anomaly.

• First, the 1970s studio revolution was defined by aggressive multi-track isolation and acoustic baffling designed to completely eliminate microphone bleed. The raw, collective room bleed heard on Light the Lanterns -- where the guitar, vocal, and drums spill into one another -- was viewed by engineers of that era as an amateur technical failure, not a conscious aesthetic choice.

• Second, musicians during the 1970s and early 1980s were looking forward, naturally adopting the songwriting tools of their own time, such as complex jazz-folk chord extensions or post-punk syncopation. The idea that a later artist would perfectly clone a 1968 West Coast modal triad progression of G > F > A major chords with a straight 60s folk-revival eighth-note acoustic strum, plus restrict the drum track to a primitive setup with no hi-hat or cymbals, contradicts the creative and technical reflexes of the post-1970 music scene. It is laughable.

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Conclusion to all the Dating Arguments
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• This A-Mixolydian chordal structure provides a definitive historical boundary for Light the Lanterns.
• The track unequivocally inhabits the electric-folk era (1965–1969), bridging the gap between early acoustic folk (pre-1965) and the later folk-rock movement (post-1969).
• It utilizes the raw modal triad architecture of that transitional window, stopping short of the jazz-influenced chord extensions -- such as major 7ths, minor 9ths, and complex suspensions -- that later became the creative standard for 1970s West Coast singer-songwriters like Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell.