Hard to know where to start with this one. Back in 2014 when I was properly getting into Animal Collective and heard Sung Tongs for the first time, my personal highlights became clear straight away. I certainly didn’t consider ‘Mouth Wooed Her’ to be one of them. I guess I just thought it was too strange. And, I mean, you couldn’t really blame me for that initial reaction. Avey Tare is not your average singer. And the track changes its time signature and shifts through many movements… it’s one to get your head around.

Then one day that I couldn’t possibly recall, it was definitely years after 2014, I heard it once more and it all seemed to make a lot more sense. Sometimes that’s the way it goes when it comes to music. But would I say it’s my favourite track on the album? Probably not. But I appreciate it quite a bit. It is weird, but simultaneously quite flowing and free to the ears. I think I would put that down to its waltz timing. And the vocal melody’s pretty memorable to. Avey Tare sings along with every downbeat (I believe, I’m not a music theorist) which gives the track that little bit of a bounce. It’s like the vocals are jumping with every delivery of a line in a verse. It takes a strange turn at about 1:40 in, which I’m sure confused on that first listen. Still does now, just a bit. But then after a quiet moment it launches back into the final few verses and all sounds good again. That is until about a minute later when the slow breakdown section starts with hazy acoustic guitars, claps, and Avey Tare singing that he needs mouth water repeatedly for the rest of the song’s duration. ‘Mouth Wooed Her’ is play on ‘mouth water’, by the way. A lot of wordplay happens in the song titles on this album.

So, yeah. Not my favourite, but won’t skip whenever it appears on a train journey. Will this post sway you to give the track a listen and throw you down an Animal Collective-shaped rabbit hole? Well, that’s questionable. But at the very least, I tried.