The most beautiful use of lydian mode

This is the mode that obliterates all thoughts of the sub-dominant IV. It creates the unconscious desire to arrive at V instead of I. I've always loved this scale.

Awesoreno wrote: The augmented fourth is what separates this scale from a simple vanilla diatonic major scale, and it is what creates the tension (often leading to a resolution, but not always), and, depending on its usage, different feelings. It could sound nostalgic, or maybe airy. Maybe very ethereal, maybe more child-like (which is what I think of when I hear it used in The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles off of A Passion Play).

Yes, to me this scale/mode sounds dreamy and mysterious but it can also create some tension.

Dream Theater - Strange Deja Vu

Lydian is a common mode in prog. It's used all the time in neo, Incommunicado being one of many obvious examples. Zappa was also very fond of the mode, using the upper structures of a chord in lydian mode to superimpose an implied major chord a whole step over the major tonic. Many of his more modernist compositions use the lydian mode constantly. And of course, who could forget "nah nah nah naaaaah nananaaaaaaaah" after the guitar solo of the version of Inca Roads that appears on the studio album, itself actually a reused melody from Holiday in Berlin (AKA Return of the Hunchback Duke when it had lyrics with them Turtle doods). The beginning of that melody hovers around the augmented fourth of the first tonic chord of the two-chord pattern of the solo before resolving. The augmented fourth is what separates this scale from a simple vanilla diatonic major scale, and it is what creates the tension (often leading to a resolution, but not always), and, depending on its usage, different feelings. It could sound nostalgic, or maybe airy. Maybe very ethereal, maybe more child-like (which is what I think of when I hear it used in The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles off of A Passion Play).

Every little thing she does is magic - The Police (The verses)

Mixolydian leads....

John Lennon was fond of the Lydian scale, but surprise, surprise, here is Olivia Newton John:

Joke's on you for not comprehending the status quo. After 2 attempts, none the richer.