Collection of Formal Analyses
Make You Feel My Love (as sung by Adele)
Someone Who Loves Me (Sarah Bareilles)
Motion Sickness (Phoebe Bridgers)
Kyoto (Phoebe Bridgers)
The Logical Song (Supertramp)
Bridge Over Troubled Water (Jacob Collier)
Excerpts from songs my students like, organized
by topic:
1) Harmonic Sequences
Here Come the Cats (Waitress)
Giants Steps (John Coltrane; the first two phrases begin with descending 3rd sequences)
Kashmir (Led Zeppelin; G-D-F-C, D-A-C-G-Bb- F=descending 2nds)
Sin Sentimientos (Grupo Niche)
Signs of the Judgment (Mark Butler)
Save Me (Avenged Sevenfold)
Forget Me Not (Laufey)
Hocus Pocus (Focus)
Hotel California (The Eagles)
Radio (Lana Del Rey)
2) The Sentence
Risk it All (Bruno Mars)
Country Boy Singin' the Blues (Cody Johnson)
As (Stevie Wonder)
It's Hard to Speak my Heart (Ben Platt; 1+1+1/2+1/2+1, as defined by the rhyme scheme in the first four lines)
Space and Time (Chance the Rapper)
Focus (Ariana Grande)
Va, laisse couler mes larmes (Massenet; sentence-like starting at time stamp: 4+4+1+1+...)
3) The Period
Cemetry Gates (The Smiths; consequent phrase has a DC, then after a cadential extension, a PAC)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles; 3-phrase period with endings of PC, HC, and IAC)
A Simple Song (Chris Stapleton)
4) AABA and Verse-Chorus Forms with a Bridge
Monsters (James Blunt)
Stupid Song (Olivia Rodrigo)
Gunpoint, Headlock (Annabelle Dinda)
Third Wind (Pat Metheny Group; chorus=AA'BA"C realized as 16+16+16+16+12 with the final 12-bar C heard as an addition by jazz players who know AABA as a basic form)
Paris, Texas (Lana Del Rey)
Softly as in a Morning Sunrise (Larry Young)
Misty (Laufey)
I'm with You (Avril Lavigne)
Will I See You Again (Three Sacred Souls)
5) Verse-Chorus Forms with No Bridge
Loretta (Ginger Root; There is no texture change to mark a sectional division between verse and chorus, so it sounds a lot like AA')
Entre Tus Jardines (Jaguares; this sounds like AA' to me, but the texture change coordinated with the return of earlier suggests that the artists were thinking of this as a verse-chorus form with the choruses at 35" and 1'32")
Before I Met You (Cody Fry; no bridge, but an extended instrumental solo before the final chorus)
Remember Summer Days (Anri)
Bubba Shot the Jukebox (Mark Chesnutt)
Buffalo Replaced (Mitski)
Willing and Able (Noah Kahan)
If This is Just a Game (David Allan Coe)
Maggots for Brains (Olivia Rodrigo)
California Girls (The Beach Boys)
Watch Your Mouth (Josiah Queen)
That's the Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire)
Orgasm of Death (The Growlers)
Communication (The Cardigans)
Yoru No Pierrot (Ado)
The End (Jutes)
I Just Might (Bruno Mars)
Rosanna (Toto)
Those Years Are Over (The Sha La Das)
Happy Little Town (Gnomes of Valor)
From the Start (Laufey)
Forget Me Not (Laufey)
Late Night Talking (Harry Styles)
Summertime (The Sundays)
Zombie (The Cranberries)
Glory of the Snow (Clairo)
The Place Where He Inserted The Blade (Black Country, New Road)
Fired (Ben Folds)
Run Away to Mars (Talk)
A Life Where We Work Out (Flatland Cavalry)
I Got Love (Bobby Oroza)
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
Earth Song (Michael Jackson)
Chiquitita (ABBA)
6) One-Part Forms
Surface (Blake Farfan; if you transcribe the opening chords as 2 half-note chords and a whole-note chord, then the song is divided into A and A' when the progression changes to 4 whole-note chords in a row, after which the opening chords return and begin A')
Truth (21 Pilots)
Fourth of July (Sufjan Stevens)
Sea of Simulation (Daft Punk)
7) Continuous Variations (though no one in pop music calls them that, they follow the same formula)
Vuelve (Ivan Cornejo; I-vi-IV-V looped once vocals enter)
Break it Right Back (Megan Moroney; also, Verse-Chorus)
I'd Rather Go Blind (Etta James)
Don't Worry, Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin)
Again and Again (Jagged Jaw and Minova)
8) The Blues and Its Influence
Chinatown (Thin Lizzy; each verse begins with the first eight bars of a blues form, only with V subst. for IV, then mm. 5-12 of a standard blues follows, with IV-bVI subst. for IV in what would be the 10th measure of the blues progression, and the last four bars repeat)
Surfin' USA (The Beach Boys: 8-bar V-I-V-I subst. for first 4 bars of Blues)
9) Canon (the section starting at 2:01 is transformed into a canon at 2:25)
Goodbye Yesterday (Elevation Rhythm & Gracie Binion)
10) Chromatic Mediants
Namelessness (Aoris)
Love is War (Supercell)
Drops of Jupiter (Train)
Love and Light (Brian Balmages; one phrase ends with Bb major triad, next phrase starts with G major triad)
Querida (Juan Gabriel)
The Planets, IV. Jupiter (Holst)
Exogenesis: Symphony, Pt. 1 (Muse)
Reason (PinkPantheress)
Black (Pearl Jam)
Folklore (Vincent Herring)
11) Using Meter or Tempo Changes to Articulate Form
Ultraviolet (Spiritbox; also a Verse-Chorus form with no bridge. The chorus is in part articulated by a change to half-time feel in the drums)
Monomyth (Animals as Leaders)
The Pot (Tool)
Weird Fishes (Radiohead)
Until Dawn (Arnor Chu; 6/8 A section, 4/4 B section)
L's Bop (Keeny Barron)
Lego Ring (Fayewebster & Lil Yachty)
All I Need (Radiohead)
12) Using Timbre to Articulate Form
Violent Crimes (Kanye West: form defined not by key or meter changes, but by the shift from sung vocals to rapped vocals to sung vocals again. One could argue for ABC, or ABCB, with B in the latter interpretation being the faster part of the opening sung material)
Give Life Back to Music (Daft Punk)
Gifted Every Strength (Loathe)
13) ABACA (aka Rondo form...)
Exit Music (For A Film) (Radiohead)