Twists, turns still define Flaming Lips
Tcharacter to it. Like Charles Dickens or “Alice in Wonderland,” there’s a sense that it is fantasy, but it’s rooted in childlike desire.
What prompted you, in the song “How??,” to write the lyric “Kill your rock ‘ n’ roll”?
In some of these songs, we have literally just gibberish going, and we know we have emotional markers within the melody, and you could almost say anything, and it would have the same impact or be the same mood. And that, sometimes, is the free ticket: Now say outrageous things.
I wanted it to feel like an emotional outburst. Lyrics can mess up a song. . . . I sing along with Journey songs all the time, because they’re so dumb that it doesn’t matter. But I have trouble with songs that are trying to say something, and then you just feel awkward about the whole thing.
With “Kill your rock ‘ n’ roll,” those types of lyrics make you say: “Why did you say that? What do you mean?” I don’t have an answer. I just like that idea.
A number of great musicians died last year. Are you affected by deaths of people you’ve never met?
The David Bowie one probably affected us more than any of the others. For the last five years or so, anytime we played near New York City, we’d put out an invite to him. And we would always get little notes back: He isn’t feeling well. He isn’t doing well. It stuck with us. And we even did a song ( with Neon Indian, in 2011); the title is “Is David Bowie Dying?” It’s a strange song about how your body simply decays, and there’s nothing mystical or magical about it.
Bowie was already in a realm of the mythical character, like Jesus and Santa Claus — it’s hard to say if they were ever humans or not. But I always felt that did him a disservice. It’s so much cooler that he’s an actual man, and not a superbeing from outer space.
Miley Cyrus sings on “We a Famly,” one of the best songs on the new album. What does she add to your music?
She’s insane, and she’s got a lot of energy, like I do. Together, we can almost overcome anything; we can barrel through people’s doubts. She loves and knows a lot about music, and I guess part of it is, it gives you confidence. Because a lot of times, we are making music in this void of, we’re old dudes. You don’t really know, are these little twists of melody and chord changes resonating with anybody besides your weird, old self?