Wagging Tongue
"Wagging Tongue" is a song by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released on 7 July 2023 as the third single from their fifteenth studio album, Memento Mori.
Background
"Wagging Tongue" is the fourth Depeche Mode track that Dave Gahan and Martin Gore collaborated on together, and the first to be released as a single.Of the song, Gahan stated: "Martin will take one of my songs, for instance, let's say 'Wagging Tongue', which is on this record. I sent my little demo to Martin of me hamfistedly trying to play the guitar, and get the song out and find the chords and all that. And then Martin sends it back with these beautiful Kraftwerk-esque chords and arpeggiated synths and stuff, and I'm like, 'Oh, okay...' But that then takes me to another place, you see, because that changes the perception again."
"It's the first song from both of us that ever made it onto a record. I could sense early on that we really hit the mark with this one." Gore elaborated: "The melody is excellent, and the entire song has something intoxicating. It's positive, it's pop, but it's not too much pop."
Reception
Joe Muggs of The Arts Desk stated, "The opening brace of tracks 'My Cosmos Is Mine' and 'Wagging Tongue' have synth patterns and deliberately simple melodies that hark all the way back to 1981 and DM's first work with Vince Clarke still in the band." Ian Wade of The Quietus added: "Loss is never far from the lyrics. On the Gore/Gahan co-write Wagging Tongue’, which opens with the melodic bounce of Trans-Europe Express-era Kraftwerk before plunging into fluttering murk. The line “Everything seems hollow when you watch another angel die” seems heartfelt."Kory Grow of Rolling Stone commented, "On 'Wagging Tongue', a rare Gahan–Gore songwriting collaboration, Gahan sings about feeling sadness 'when you watch another angel die' over sparkly New Wave synths that recall the group's earliest work. The lyrics, which Gahan sings ominously, could be a metaphoric indictment of politicians needing to act on gun safety or Gahan could be singing about rising above personal obstacles, but, either way, with the shimmery keyboard backdrop, the words have a way of sticking in your brain."