We talked about mediants in Mitski's song "When Memories Snow." What other songs use mediants?
Oh! Darling - The Beatles (Paul McCartney)
D F7 When you told me you didn't need me anymore A Well, you know I nearly broke down and cried B7 When you told me you didn't need me anymore E7 F7 E7 E7#5 Well, you know I nearly fell down and die -ie -ie-ie-ied
The song is in the key of A, and the transition from verse to chorus has A-A7, which naturally leads to D with A7 being a dominant of D. We then jump up a minor third to F, which provides some tension and floatiness, and then jump up a major third back to the tonic. The bass walks up stepwise to A too, outlining a "Mario cadence."
We then have a v/v secondary dominant leading to the dominant chord E, but move up a semitone to F again and then back down to E. This movement by semitone has a similar feel to the phrygian I-bII-I movement. The F is still a mediant compared to A but feels phrygian-y in this context. Shows how the same chord can feel different based on the chords surrounding it.
Froot - Marina and the Diamonds (Marina Diamandis)
G Come and fill your cup up Bb A Looking for some good luck G Bb A Good luck, good luck to you G Hanging like a fro-oot Bb A Ready to be ju-uiced Eb Ju-uiced, ju-u-u-uiced Gm Living la dolce vita
(The chord progression in the pre-chorus is the same as in the first half of the verse)
We have a pretty unusual chord progression here with G jumping up a minor third to Bb and then planing back down to Bb. The movement is between 3 roots that are ultimately stepwise from each other (G-A-Bb). Then from the A we have a tritone jump to Eb, which is a chord in Gminor, the parallel minor of G.
This is mostly planing around three chords near each other, but starting with a jump up a third, which is always slightly unsettling.
Hypno K.K. - Kazumi Tokata
This charming short song from Animal Crossing shows how unsettling the mediant can be. The piece starts by simply swinging back and forth between C and Ab. The title of the song shows that the aim is a hypnotic effect, which I think the movement from tonic to submediant demonstrates.
https://musescore.com/user/14115336/scores/6681201