Songfacts®:

• "Gather Round" is The Lemon Twigs' call to arms. Brian D'Addario wrote the track out of frustration with American politics and the growing sense that ordinary people must organize themselves if they want meaningful change.
  
  "As much as we might want a charismatic leader to help us out of the current political situation, it looks like collective action is the only way to see a better future," Brian told Magnet magazine.
  
  Pointing to strikes and protests as the most effective ways to confront power, he described the track as being about "that yearning for leadership and guidance and the realization that you can't wait around for it."
• His frustration spans the entire political spectrum. "I felt very disillusioned, like many others, with Joe Biden, and I find Trump appalling," Brian told ABC News Australia. "It makes you yearn for someone you can believe in, yet you realize that all these figures often turn out to be untrustworthy."
• Brian wrote "Gather Round" in the style of a campaign march, drawing inspiration from philosopher and academic Cornel West, who ran as an independent candidate in the 2024 US presidential election.
  
  "I was watching a clip of Cornel West," Brian D'Addario told Mojo magazine. "His presidential bid ended in leftist in-fighting but he's an amazing, inspirational speaker, and I was dreaming of someone like that having power. Then the song became more about older people joining together."
  
  West's platform challenged established power structures, matching the song's call for people to take matters into their own hands.
  
  Brian gives the song a grand, slightly theatrical feel, complete with brass and woodwinds that sound like a parade passing by. He plays almost every instrument on the recording, leaving only the horn and wind arrangements to outside musicians.
• The track highlights how the brothers split up songwriting duties. "We stay out of each other's way," Michael D'Addario told Uncut magazine. "With 'Gather Round,' I love how this has that corny 'Join the Army' feel. It works for me because I'd never even think about writing a song about that. So it works on that shallow level for me, which means I can enjoy playing it."
• "Gather Round" was recorded for Look For Your Mind!, the first Lemon Twigs album to feature their full touring band in the studio. The recording doubles as a family project: Brian's girlfriend, Anastasia Sanchez of Tchotchke, sings backing vocals alongside the brothers' mother, Susan Hall. Tchotchke bassist Eva Chambers, who was dating Michael at the time, plays bass and sings elsewhere on the record, in addition to designing the album cover.
• The Look For Your Mind! album was recorded in The Lemon Twigs' tiny vintage equipment-clogged studio in North Brooklyn. "The drum room is a bathroom," Brian D'Addario told Mojo, "and our drummer Reza is six-foot three, so he's really cramped. It's not the most comfortable space, which means you do everything quicker because you want to get the hell out of there. It's the exact opposite of Rick Rubin's studio, which I imagine to be tranquil, spacious... and conservative, apparently."