Songfacts®:

• Queens Of The Stone Age generated a buzz with "Mosquito Song," a track that was (sort of) hidden on the CD for their third album, Songs For The Deaf. It's listed on the tracklist as a "hidden song," which doesn't hide it very well. But to hear it, you had to wait through 30 seconds of silence after the previous track, "Song For The Deaf."
• The blood-sucking insects in this song could be a metaphor for the negative influences in our lives, but the song could also be taking a wide-angle view of our place in the circle of life. We're really just food for mosquitos and ultimately will be nourishment for the soil. Kind of puts us in our place.
• Queens Of The Stone Age leader Josh Homme sings lead on "Mosquito Song," but with a different texture to his voice - he sounds more like Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
• Dean Ween plays guitar on this song and wrote it with Homme and QOTSA bass player Nick Oliveri. Ween also appears on the Songs For The Deaf tracks "Six Shooter" and "Gonna Leave You."
• The song starts very mellow but ends in an orchestral flourish. Along with horns and a string section (simulating the buzz of a mosquito), there's accordion by Molly McGuire and piano by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider.
  
  Dave Grohl added percussion. He joined Queens Of The Stone Age temporarily for the Songs For The Deaf album, taking a break from Foo Fighters. The first two QOTSA albums were highly acclaimed but didn't rack up impressive sales figures, so the band was afraid their label would tighten the strings when they made Songs For The Deaf. When Grohl joined, that was no longer a problem: the label was happy to shell out for orchestral musicians knowing they had a huge star associated with the album.