Most well-known songs based around a major seven chord?

... plus quite a few Arthur Lee/Love songs: "Andmoreagain", "You Set the Scene" et al.

Neil uses that little D/Dmaj7/D7 run in Motion Pictures most noticeably. Mercury Rev used it on Holes and wouldn't be surprized if they got it from him seeing as they cover those On the Beach songs. REM probably got from him as well.

Oh and Burt Bacharach - A LOT

Oh well this explains why I like Neil Young so much. (I've been trying to figure it out...) There's a song called "Razor Love" from Silver and Gold where the verse just alternates between two maj-7th chords. It sort of reminde me of "If You're Feeling Sinister," in an odd way.

I adore this thread.

Hurting is OTM. What's Goin' On is the best example I've seen so far of a song that centers around a maj7 (Mercy Mercy Me as well). Reminiscin' by the Little River Band is based around Gmaj7, Steely Dan's music is littered with them. It's an open "jazzy" chord, underused in my opinion.

As for the maj/maj7/dominant progression, to "Kiss Me" and "Show me the way" I would add "It Ain't Over Til its Over" by Lenny Kravitz

"for the most part jazz players were using minor scales that contained major 6ths and 7ths (which the natural [and dorian mode] does not)"

The melodic minor scale has a major 6th and 7th.

Interesting how the saturation of modern pop music with blues harmonies has exoticised the formerly more mundane maj7. Blues nomally uses a dominant 7 as the "home" chord, but traditionally Westerm music in a major key would come home to a Major chord. The seventh of the scale wouldn't necessarily be played, but if it were it would have been a major 7th: so the major 7 is sort of implied, even if not played.

From a jazz perspective, prior to the advent of modal jazz at least, most tunes also started and finished on a major chord (the tonic) that would naturally take a major rather than minor 7: the main exception would have been certain straightforward blues tunes. Jazz improvisors tend not to distinguish too much between tonic chords where the implied harmony is a major scale: the tonic chord might be played as a major triad, or a major 6 or major 7 chord, or a major 9 or whatever - jazz musicians tend to regard these as more or less interchangeable. The reason being that any note within the major scale can be added to the chord without changing its harmonic function within the tune(whereas adding a minor 7th to form a dominant 7 chord *would* imply a different harmonic function, in fact a change of key, although, as I said earlier, the rules for blues tunes are different).

But the use of dominant 7th chords has become so pervasive that the formerly more mundane major 7 now sounds a bit exotic to some ears, even when used as the tonic. To earlier generations it's the use of the dominant 7 as the home chord that would have sounded exotic, even jarring.

Going back to the original question my problem is with the words "based around". Most pre-rock popular music comes home to a major chord that would quite naturally take a major 7, but that probably doesn't mean the music is "based on" that chord. Some jazzy soft-rock does seem to wallow in that maj7 sound, often by alternating between a IMaj7/IVmaj7 (eg Emaj7/Amaj 7) Examples that spring to mind are "My Love" (Macca), "I Want to Make It With You" (Bread), "Your Love Is King" (Sade), "Wild Children" (Van Morrison). Marvin Gaye uses the sound a lot, as others have pointed out. You get (usually somewhat more harmonically interesting) examples of it in modal jazz - the reason why Miles was attracted to "On Green Dolphin Street" would have been that major 7 sound, very familiar to soft rock fans - he normally reharmonised the tune so that it had even more maj7 chords than the written version.

DOM 7 = TEH BLUES
MAJ 7 = TEH POP

also the5th song on loveless starts on the maj7 (the note not the chord) and in general that album has a lot of those chords! a heavily distoreted maj7 can sound shudderingly beautiful, or shitty

i am listening to 'fun house' and i dont think there is a single maj7 chord here

One of the more well-known songs that I know of based around a Maj7 chord is 'Waitin' on a Friend' by the Rolling Stones, a CMaj7.

This is a very interesting thread....

my fave Ronettes song - "Do I Love You"