“I swear I saw your mouth move” is a pop/rock/folk album, released in 2017 by “I’ve made too much pasta”, the musical persona of Scurrow Oats. A member of the furry community, Scurrow is a fairly popular musician. A multi-instrumentalist, Scurrow plays all the instruments on the album, a notable highlight being his accordion.

That being said, I do have my own history with this album. It came to me at a time when I was depressed and I didn’t enjoy listening to music at all.

One day, I accidentally happened upon a clip of Scurrow playing a cover of “Aeroplane over the sea” by “Neutral Milk Hotel”. I found it strangely pleasant. I looked into the artist, discovering his album “I swear I saw your mouth move”. I instantly fell in love with it.

A charming work, with a very amateurish DIY punk aesthetic, it somehow managed to captivate me.

The songs were memorable and catchy. And the lyrics felt like they had something much heavier lying just underneath the comedy.

I write all this, so you know that I may be a little biased in favor of the album. I am well aware that it won’t be to everybody’s liking – the cracking vocals, the accordion and the esoteric themes being some of the aspects that might push people away from it.

However, this album changed my life in a way I can not really explain. I’ve decided to do a review of each song, mostly focusing on the lyrics and talking a little bit about the instrumentation.

I understand that it is not a typical way of writing a review, but for me, I believe it is the best way to explain my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

1.      Fleas

The opening song of the album and the shortest song, not even reaching the two-minute mark. The song is carried by an acoustic guitar while the singer’s voice constantly cracks as he tells the story of how he lives his life, infested with fleas. While not singing, Scurrow whistles the main vocal melody of the song. The piece ends with a synth, playing the main chords in the left hand and the melody in the right.

The song itself is fairly comical and is a great entry for the album, showing what the listener is in for - comedy pop/rock tracks with an amateurish and fun-loving vibe to them, although not showing the full extent of the performer’s capabilities. The lyrics of this song, as well as the second, are purely comical, which, surprisingly, isn’t a theme throughout the album

2.      Raccoon song

Continuing on from the previous song, the second track is once again purely comedic. The song mostly concerns itself with the supremacy of raccoons, being adaptive animals, highly intelligent and able to solve ludicrous problems such as dismantling bombs, as well as mentioning the possibility of one day there being a raccoon president, who can solve every global crisis in one day.

Musically, the song is much more complex than “Fleas”, having a typical rock instrumentation – electric guitar, bass and drums. The song has four verses, but no chorus, preferring to use two differently sounding intermissions after every two verses and an A Capella vocal performance.

3.      Evil boys and evil girls

Another comedy song in a comedy album, but this one is an indicator of things to come. The song deals, in a comedic fashion naturally, with the theme of dangerous and parasitic people and offers the listener ways of dealing with the problem.

The most peculiar part of the lyrics is during the hook, when the lines “don’t let them in your heart”, which makes it sound like the vocalist has had his fair share of experiences with such people.

The first sign, that the comedy of this album is there not simply to make you laugh, but to deliver a message.

Musically the piece is once again a pop/rock song, which uses vocal harmonies. But the addition of an accordion, Scurrow’s signature instrument, gives the entire piece a certain flair, an almost Weird Al Yankovic sense of groove.

“Yes, we are a pop band. Yes, we have an accordion.”

4.      Never ending thirst

An accordion, accompanied by bass and drums. The fourth track of the album is where the creativity truly begins to shine.

Because of the instrumentation, the song sounds like a folksy sailing song, the main theme of which is insatiability.

Here is where the lyrics stop being completely comical, having a deeper layer once one begins the burrow into them.

No matter what the character does, he is left thirsty. Stranded in a desert, without anything to drink, he bemoans his life, not sure what went wrong. His friends have left him. The system has failed him. Always looking over his shoulder, false partners following him around.

Besides possibly being a story of someone completely consumed by their greed, this could be read as a drug addict’s life.

The never ending thirst being his inability to get his fix. Left by his friends, unable to find love in people and the system dubbing him nothing more than a problem, he is followed by a cat and an ape, who call themselves his friends, although he is extremely skeptical of them. An obvious allusion to enablers and dealers.

The theme ties together with the lyrics in the final chorus: “the things that you love will kill you in the end, but you will die with a cartoon grin.”

5.      I had a great time in the trash

The fifth song in the album, sparse in lyrics, is very likely to be a program music piece.

The lyrics go on to say how great life in a trash can be, the lyricist loving everything about it, eating whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

The instrumentation consists of an acoustic guitar, bass, drums, an electric guitar and a slide guitar.

Beginning with an unsettling motif, transforming into an almost ethereal soundscape and shifting into a punk song with the use of dissonant chords after which it turns ethereal once again, the music sounds like a schizophrenic episode. The lyrics here are not the main focus and only serve to enhance the inherent detachment from reality.

6.      I would eat the moon

A waltz, strangely enough, reminiscent of French estrade music.

The lyrics here deal with someone who, quite literally, wants to eat the moon.

But the interpretations I am going for is that of misanthropy and greed. Greed, not because someone wants something, but because they don’t really want anyone else to have it.

“If I could reach up and pull it right out of the sky and make everybody cry.”

“I would sniff the air, while it’s full of despair, stop the oceans and tides and mess up the world beyond repair.”

Clearly, the main character here wants everyone to simply suffer. Whether they have been wronged so many times that they’ve stopped caring, or they are simply evil, is left up for interpretations.

In the final verse the lyrics read:

“You’d say: why did you do this? And the moon is not even nutritious! Why do you want us to die?”

The character is fully aware of what he is doing, of how it even hurts him. But as long as everybody else suffers, he is content with self-harm in one form or another.

7.      Macaroni and disease

A fast paced punk song, this time without an accordion, the lyrics follow a simple theme – everything in the fridge has gone rotten.

Food, forgotten for weeks on end, slowly decaying, its smell filling up the refrigerator.

A song of forgotten and forsaken opportunities.

Everything that was once supposed to bring joy and nutrition has died out, leaving only death behind its wake

Love, happiness, memories – they are all in the past, nothing left, but only the shells of better times.

“I wanted to eat you all before you rotted”

8.      The world’s not big enough for the both of us

An arena rock piece, this time the lyrical themes are bit cheekier than the previous one, making allusions to what sounds like superheroes fighting.

Reminiscent of Alan Moore’s superhero deconstructions in “Miracleman” or “Watchmen”, the song depicts a realistic battle between super-powered, almost godlike, beings. With each strike, they shatter buildings, destroying cities and leaving thousands of dead in their wake.

The fights rage on through the entire world, none of them able to hide from one another. Tsunamis are caused when one of the fighters is thrown in the ocean. Finally, one is presumably killed at the pole, when a laser beam is shot in their heart. But the laser beam was so strong that it melted the icecaps, causing a deluge.

The song can also be interpreted as an abusive, toxic relationship, with considerable hyperbole, in which both parties do anything and everything in their power to make the other one’s life a nightmare.

9.      God of outer space

Musically an homage to 80’s space rock bands and the Ziggy Stardust era of David Bowie’s career, using effects heavy synths for a more ethereal texture to the now familiar band arrangement.

The lyrics read like a new age religion interpreted by a stoned hippie, not really making any cohesive claims.

10.   Maybe we can steal our neighbors cable  

A work, obviously inspired both in musical and lyrical theme by “The White Stripes”’ late albums, this song deals with the themes of modernity, poverty and love.

The main character lives in a small apartment, barely getting by, with bills stacked on top of bills littered throughout the floor after the table they were laid on simply broke in two from their weight.

Filled with disdain, the protagonist decided to find an alternative – steal the neighbor’s cable.

The lyrics continue on, describing how he and his partner would do the deed as well as steal food from the trash cans (continuing the theme of raccoons from previous songs).

The themes of squatting and illegalism are present in the lyrics, a lifestyle chosen as to get out of the rat race, which banes the protagonist, who’s barely able to live a normal life.

“There’s no need to worry, ‘cause there’s plenty for all” describes the image of mass hoarding of resources, something typical of late stage capitalism.

The outro of the song finishes with the main character, trying to softly convince his partner, how although they are unhappy, they could potentially live a happy life without the need to work, angry about how they’ve paid so much money on their life accommodations.

The question arises “If we never have to worry, what will we spend our time with?”, plainly stating how the anxiety of modern day living and survival has taken up the entirety of their free time.

And yet, if they choose to abandon this way of life, they can truly live happily.

“We can be so happy on no salary”.

11.   Lemurs in the walls

Musically, the song continues with the space rock/Ziggy Stardust style. The lyrics this time around deal with lemurs living in the walls.

The theme here can be viewed as modern day spirituality.

Animism is the belief that everything has a spirit. The song deals with the concept, but thrust into an urban, modern day house.

Lemurs here represent the supposed spirits that inhabit the walls of a house, the protagonist noticing them after a day of alcoholism.

Allusions are made to ancient elemental cults and continued to an absurd point.

“Oh, mother sky; oh, father rain; oh, uncle ground; oh, aunty drain; oh, cousin cloud.”

He then continues with names of lemurs from pop culture – king Julien and Marsupilami, the idea being how pop culture has created its own mythical creatures, worshiped in their own way.

The song ends with echoes about how when you call out the supposed lemurs in the walls, they never truly hear you, again making connections with spirituality – how whenever you call out gods or spirits, there is no physical indication that you are being heard.

12.   Ferret without any whiskers

The closing track of the album and possibly the least comedic. Put simply, this track deals with death. Death, loss, sadness, misanthropy and nihilism.

The lyrics follow the ramblings of the protagonist ready to leave, swearing he will never return.

“And I’ll never be back in the saddle again; and I’ll never take one for the team; if I could I would forfeit and make us all lose; and our bodies could poison the stream;”

The lyrics are once again allusions to misery for the sake of misery, referring back to “I would eat the moon”.

The song talks about the aimlessness of his life, through imagery of aliens without space ships, his willingness to believe in anything, but the lack of anything to worship and even how he has teeth, but he’s left without anything worth eating.

The lines conjure thoughts of depression, how a person is trying to grasp at anything, trying to stay alive.

All meaning now lost, swallowed by the sea, he remembers better times, how his hopes and dreams and aspirations filled him with a drive to move forward. But they are all gone now.

The piece begins with just vocals accompanied by an accordion, later adding a tambourine, and finally gongs and cymbals, resembling more and more a funeral march.

The song ends with how he is left in a sinking ship, misunderstood by everyone he knew. The last thing we heard as listeners is a quiet, sad whimper as the song concludes.

And with the end of the album comes silence.

It is not a perfect album – the mixing can be off, Scurrow’s vocals can be very grating at times and his playing leaves something to be desired. Theis is for sure not a perfect album. But I do believe that all the things I just mentioned only serve to enhance the meaning, the feel and the intimacy of this work.

Naturally, the lyric analysis I’ve done could be just me reading too deep into them and the entire thing should just be taken in at face value – a dorky, comedy album by a man, dressed in a raccoon suit.

Maybe that’s true.

Maybe the dark place I was in made me ascribe meaning to meaningless phrases.

But the album did lift me up. And it has stayed with me throughout the years.

After all, isn’t that the point of any art form? To leave a lasting impression on anyone who is open to it?

As of writing this, Scurrow has not released any more albums. But it is my firm belief that he should.

If you are ever curious about the underground, furry music scene, I wholeheartedly recommend this album. It is a work of outsider art and is a rock album like no other.