WATCH: The Flaming Lips Enlist Kacey Musgraves for New Single “Flowers of Neptune 6”

The Lips’ first new music of 2020 arrives with a dramatic video.
WATCH: The Flaming Lips Enlist Kacey Musgraves for New Single “Flowers of Neptune 6”

The Lips’ first new music of 2020 arrives with a dramatic video.

Words: Kim March

photo by George Salisbury

May 29, 2020

Lots of things in this country are literally and figuratively burning right now, and The Flaming Lips seem to have anticipated that when filming the dramatic visual for their brand new single “Flowers of Neptune.” The track itself is a gentle, quarantine-friendly song about “doing acid and watching the light-bugs glow,” with Kacey Musgraves harmonizing to bringing out the song’s subtle Americana undertones.

The video, though, manages to capture an even more current state of affairs in this country—Wayne Coyne traverses an Oklahoman countryside wrapped in an American flag as everything around him burns down. Though Coyne cites the track as an evocation of “the panic of becoming one with the world” in a press statement, I’m guessing he didn’t foresee a torched Minneapolis precinct in the cards for 2020.

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“‘Flowers Of Neptune 6’ track started off as a very evocative series of melodies that Steven Drozd had woven together,” Coyne noted in the same press release. “The first time he played it for me I was stunned by its emotional flow… The opening lyric ‘Yellow sun is going down so slow…Doing acid and watching the light-bugs glow like tiny spaceships in a row…’ is the coolest thing I’ll ever know…and is a combination of blissful, innocent, psychedelic experiences that Steven and Kacey Musgraves and myself all discussed.”

Watch the video below, and anticipate more from the Lips (in addition to their newly unveiled COVID apparel) later this year.