Time to Pretend

This send-up of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle was originally the lead track on MGMT's 2005 debut release, an EP released by an Indie label, Cantora Records. A new version of this was recorded for the Oracular Spectacular album.

MGMT member Andrew VanWyngarden told Inside Bay Area that the keyboard melody on "Time to Pretend" was "inspired by the dance of our pet praying mantis Kuivila, who was named after our Experimental Music professor who advised us on our senior project."

Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann produced the album. In an interview with Crossfire, MGMT member Ben Goldwasser discussed working with Fridmann: "When we started writing we didn't know that he was going to produce us. I mean, we had randomly put him on this list of dream producers who we would like to work with and we ended up talking to him on the phone and we hit it off really well. We love his production work. I mean, we didn't want to work with him because we wanted to sound like the Flaming Lips, it was more that we felt like he understood us on a personal level and he really got out music. We were pretty sure after talking to him that he would make it the album we wanted it to be."