Shooting Stars – Bag Raiders
I unironically love this song, I think it’s an absolute jam. It’s also unique in a couple ways, both of which are related to its structure.
Weird Attribute #1: the overarching structure
The song is basically one giant A section into one giant B section. I consider the B section the chorus because:
- It increases in intensity
- Method 1: Melody is in a higher register
- Method 2: More layers
- It has the title of the song in the first lyric for each repetition
You could instead see it as ABC :
- A = beginning until lyric “down the street”
- B = instrumental interlude
- C = beginning with “Gave my love to a shooting star…”
Or Intro A B C – where the Intro is the instrumental part up until the first lyric.
Either way, you can consider it through-composed. Quite uncommon!
A caveat
It’s tempting to write the structure a bit more granularly. Using the official music video for timestamp references:
| Section | Timestamp | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| (Intro) | 0:00 | – |
| A | 0:08 | |
| B | 0:24 | Main chord progression is introduced |
| B | 0:40 | ”Verse” (lyric) starts |
| B’ | 0:54 | Slight changes to chords |
| B” | 1:10 | Slight changes to chords (again) |
| B''' | 1:26 | Slight changes to chords (again!) |
| A’ | 1:40 | An extended version of A (see below) |
| C | 2:00 | Crescendo to “chorus” |
| D | 2:18 | ”Chorus” (until end) |
A' is a much larger deviation from A than B' is from B. |
Regarding the harmonic rhythm:
- In
Ait’s 1 chord per bar – a 2 barE | C#mloop - In
A'it’s 1 chord per 2 bars (the same two chords, but only played once)
The remainder of the chords in A' are different which is significant.
However, the other thing potentially making this A' (as opposed to a different section altogether) is that it has the choir “ooo” element.
This is a bit of a stretch but 🤷🏼️.
Weird aspect #2: the chorus
The chorus consists of 4 phrases being repeated:
Gave my love to a shootin’ star
But she moves so fast that I can’t keep up, I’m chasin’
I’m in love with a shootin’ star
But she moves so fast, when she falls, then I’ll be waitin’
This phrase group is repeated three times. Three times!! I cannot think of another song whose chorus is repeated exactly three times with lyrics. The instrumental part of the chorus is repeated one more time.
Funnily enough, the lyrics posted on Genius (as of 2026-04-18) show it as four times, which is a reasonable assumption to make if one is not listening super closely.