Many would consider ‘Mutilated Lips’ to be a clear highlight from The Mollusk. For the longest time though, I didn’t. When I heard the album the first time in 2014, it was obvious that it was a record like no other. The tracks were strange, the cover surreal… The Mollusk is a weird package, but the music was phenomenal. For the longest time, ‘Lips’ stuck out to me as the ‘weird’ song that was made for the point of being weird. The backward reverb before each line, the alternate tuning, the high-pitched voice during the ever-going sentence that makes up the song’s chorus. It all just gave an impression to me of “Yep, this is the weird one.”

So I didn’t care for it for a few years. I had my choice cuts from the album set in stone. But then I watched the band’s 2003 Live in Chicago DVD on YouTube where they performed the song, and it sort of clicked from that. There’s a skinny, potentially strung out Gene Ween on the acoustic guitar, eyes bulging out of his skull, changing the pitch of his voice automatically whenever the song requires it… he’s just owns his performance. And here the song is performed in a different key which I think suited it much better. But those aforementioned things that put me off the track up to that point, I suddenly rated quite highly. Except that backwards echo thing, that doesn’t happen in the live take. But hearing that performance made me listen to the album version with open ears. It’s been an favourite in my music library ever since.

As arguably the strangest song on the album, you’d think it wouldn’t be the track that record labels would want the people to hear when they find out a new Ween album was arriving. Well, Elektra Records did, and selected the track to be the first single released from The Mollusk, much to Gene and Dean Ween’s confusion. I maybe would have chosen the album’s title track, but I’m not a label rep, so what would I know? Below is that Live in Chicago performance, just so you don’t have to open another tab and search for it yourself.