The nearly six-minute song is not only chorus-less, the verses vary in length, as well. “We like writing songs that don’t have set forms and sections,” says Nikki. Ex. 1 shows the main eight-bar phrase, which at times stretches to ten measures or longer. Monninger uses all downstrokes with her heavy-gauge pick, letting the open E ring freely. “Occasionally,” she adds, “I throw in an E harmonic at the 12th fret of the E string.” In bars 2, 4, and 8, ears perk up as Nikki plays the 5th (B) on the downbeat and anticipates the return of the root by playing it on the “and” of beat two. Bars 5 and 6 find Monninger riding the root of C#m7, but she then plays the B chord’s 3rd (D#), a nice leading tone back to E. “That was my idea,” she explains. “At first I was playing a B with Brian, but I tried the D# going to the E and it worked. It probably comes from my ten years of piano lessons as a kid.”
The next noticeable change is what Monninger calls “the loud section,” which occurs 2:45 into the song. Here, Nikki breaks up the steady eighth-notes with the slightly syncopated pattern shown in Ex. 2. All of the notes are downstrokes, except the last 16th of beats two and four, which are upstrokes. This measure repeats ten times before returning to steady eighths for the C#m7 and B/D# chords. When the band plays live, Nikki steps on a Boss RC-20 Loop Station in this section to trigger a wailing lick played by guitarist/vocalist Brian Aubert. The song returns to the main section, has another loud guitar solo (4:01), and then rides out. Listen for a melody line (written by Monninger and Aubert) that she and keyboardist Joe Lester play at 4:16, 4:35, and 4:53. Nikki, who says she focused on locking with Christopher Guanlao’s kick and snare throughout, advises, “Dig in hard with the pick and sit right in the pocket—but don’t forget to smile and have fun!”