“How to Make a Mouth in Nature” is a psychedelic allegory about art and morality. Historically, most musical instruments have macabre origins—the catgut of stringed instruments and their horsetail bows, the goatskin of drumheads, the bone glues of guitars, and not to mention, the occult sacrifices of the Big Three.
Andy Goldsworthy is a plant-based sculptor who strings leaves together and calls it art. He sculpts in the medium of the forest allowing the winds of time to help shape his work as if he himself is a force of nature. Now imagine his inversion: an Anti-Goldsworthy. Such an artist would be as a demi-god playing upon the animals themselves. His footsteps make kick drums as he walks along the path. He can absorb the powers of the forest merely by ingesting its pizzles.
The main melody of the verse is suspiciously similar to the verse of the Gentle Giant song “Inside Out”, almost as if the composer directly ripped it off. “Inside Out” is what happens to 70s Prog bands in the 80s, but it’s also a really good song. The melodic movement follows three whole tones in a row (A B C# D#) before resolving on the Perfect Fifth (E).
“How to Make a Mouth” has a kind of New Wave feel with its tribal dance beat, droning ambiance, non-musical animal sounds, and general zany attitude. The song probably wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for the shoulders of great bands we squat upon: TMBG, Talking Heads, and Gentle Giant.
The key of the song is an exotic key hardly ever used called Lydian Dominant. Lydian Dominant puts the “Lydian” back into Mixolydian. It’s basically a Lydian scale with a Dominant Seventh. Drag over the notes below in A Lydian Dominant.
I’d like to see more songs use this key. I can’t really think of one example that uses it in Popular music. The Gentle Giant song isn’t really in Lydian Dominant and only uses the raised fourth (D#) as a passing tone. Lydian Dominant is identical to the Overtone Series, the intrinsic scale wrapped up in the color of every note.
