This series is about analyzing music and taking  out the things that we can use for our own music. 

Today we're going to have a look  at the song Motion Sickness by  

Phoebe Bridgers. And there's just so much  to mention such as: the lyric structure,  

the harmonic framework and the uneven  amount of bars going on in the song. 

So in other words a lot to learn. Let's get creative!

As a fun morning ear training  exercise I decided to transcribe  

the song Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers. This song was already in my playlist for some  

time, but I never actually analyzed it. But  now after diving in, I can tell you that you  

are in for a treat! Such skill lies  

behind this song. It's really amazing. So let's take a look at technique number one: 

We're going to take a look at the lyrics first  because there are two interesting things going on. 

When we line up all the choruses we see that the  lyrics for chorus 1 and 2 are completely the same. 

And chorus number 3 is played  directly after chorus number 2,  

but the lyrics are completely different. And this is a neat trick because it allows  

you to repeat the melody and the chords  of your chorus but by applying a different  

lyric it feels like something fresh. And a very interesting thing is that  

the last chorus has the signature first  line in it which carries the song title,  

but after that the lyrics change completely. By keeping the harmony and melody the same  

you have something very strong  that unifies the choruses. 

Plus chorus 1, 2 and 4 open with the most  important sentence of the song, which to the  

listener immediately labels it as being a chorus. So an extra tip: 

The first and last sentence in any  verse or chorus are heavy moments. 

Which means that they are  the most important spots. 

When we line up all the verses we see that each  verse has six lines and in all of them the fourth  

sentence is very short compared to the others. So how will this affect the structure of our song? 

This takes us to technique number two:  which is the uneven amount of bars. 

A lot of songs nowadays follow a fixed formula of  bars in groups of four. Everything ends up being  

more or less symmetrical, and maybe even boring. As I often say, the structure becomes squared. 

This is definitely not the  case with Motion Sickness. 

Verse 1 has 13 bars, while verse 2 and 3  have 11 bars. All of them are uneven numbers. 

And if I look at chorus 1 it has 11 bars and when  I look at chorus 2, 3 and 4 they have 9 bars. 

In the verses the lyrics are responsible  for the uneven amount of bars,  

because remember that I said that there  was always a short sentence in the verses? 

Well this is also where a bar is cut out. This  

explains why first two and three  have 11 bars instead of 12. 

Here we have two phrases of 4  bars and one phrase of 3 bars. 

But in the first verse we have 13 bars  so where do these extra 2 bars come from? 

There is one extra bar in the beginning  playing an extra G flat. And they most  

likely did this to maximize the impact of the  word 'hate', by stretching it out over one bar.

Also if we would have to fit the first  sentence into two bars, the beginning  

of the vocal might sound a bit rushed. And the other extra bar is at the end of  

the verse which serves as extra connecting  tissue between verse 1 and verse 2.

It gives the verses one and  two a bit more time to breathe. 

They also did the same after  the choruses. They added one  

extra bar to give it a little bit  more space between the sections.

And the reason why chorus 1 has two extra bars  of D-flat is because it simply creates a better  

connection going back to verse 3. And this takes us to the  

last technique that we can learn. Technique number three: The harmonic structure 

The first thing that I noticed while playing  along to the song was the harmonic tension that  

was going on between the verse and the chorus. While the verse and intro seem to be comfortably  

sitting around the tonic chord, the chorus  finds itself staying on the more unstable  

subdominant or fourth scale degree. The song Motion Sickness is in the key of D-flat. 

Which means that the tonic is D-flat and the  sub-dominant is G-flat. Now of course the question  

arises: why would you want to have your verse  and your chorus centre around a different chord? 

And of course how can you  apply this to your own music? 

It all has to do with tension and  release, and for the sake of variation. 

In functional harmony the one, four, five, one  progression is by far the most important and  

probably also the most used one. We can see an example of this  

progression at the end of each verse. First we're hanging around some time  

on the subdominant but afterwards  it ends with a four, five, one progression.

Just like the verse, the  chorus also starts on G-flat. 

So why do we perceive the chorus as being centered  around the G-flat or the subdominant scale degree? 

This is done with three tricks. Trick number one: 

G-flat is the sub-dominant of D-flat as I  just told you. But if we reverse this, D-flat  

can also function as the dominant for G-flat. Since the verse ends on D-flat and the chorus  

starts on G-flat we have a 5-1 progression. And  during the chorus the G-flat is accentuated by  

two extra tricks. Trick number two: 

If we look at the first three bars we go from  G-flat to D-flat to A-flat back to G-flat. 

This feels like a 1-5-2-1 progression  and what makes the G-flat feel more  

important is that it lasts twice as  long compared to the other two chords.

Trick number three: When we look at bar  

three to five of the chorus we see a movement from  G-flat to B-flat minor to F minor back to G-flat. 

Especially this F minor which is a half step  below G-flat creates a strong pull back to G-flat.

In the bigger picture the fact that the chorus  centers around the unstable subdominant degree,  

means that the chorus carries a lot of harmonic  tension, because we want to go back to the tonic. 

And this only happens after the first  chorus and afterwards it's left unresolved. 

And in the bridge even more tension is created  when they start shifting between the A-flat  

and the G-flat, which are respectively  the dominant and the subdominant degree. 

So as you can see planning your harmonic movement  

on a section basis can really benefit  the tension and release of your song. 

The song Motion Sickness is truly a prime  example of smart and impactful songwriting. 

There are just so many hidden tricks and  techniques to learn, it's really beautiful! 

And I'm curious if you enjoyed this new  song analysis series that I'm doing. 

And if you do be sure to let me know by  commenting or by plussing the like button! 

I wish you a lot of new inspiration and in the  meantime: don't forget to share and subscribe to  

the channel. And for now... See you next time!