Sunday, April 13, 2008

Mouth Music

I was at thesaurus.com looking up synonyms for the word kiss and found this one that made me laugh a little at first: mouth music.
It's kind of an odd phrase, and I've never heard anyone use it before. A quick Google search reveals that there is a celtic/folk band with that name, and a YouTube video of some beat boxing, plus a lot of Smash Mouth references. If I heard someone say 'mouth music' my mind would go to beatboxing, scatting or accapella groups first, not kissing. But I can't get the phrase out of my head.
It kind of works as a description of French kissing, though, if you think about it. Lips press together, like someone playing a brass instrument. When the tongue makes it's venture outward, the motion is not unlike the plucking of a guitar. But most telling is the idea of the harmony needed between the kissers. They don't move as one, more like a duo playing their instruments both in sync and as counterpoint to each other. One accepts the tongue, the other invades with it. Then they switch. Or they overlap, the two tongues entwined like the harmony of a soprano and an alto.
But mostly, it sounds like a punchline for a bad pick-up line. "Let's make some mouth music, baby," I can hear some greasy guy with half unbuttoned shirt, gold chain and pornstache saying. But it does have a certain roll to it.

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