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All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.

Andrew Bird

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Andrew Bird
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: July 11
Fiddler
Film Editor
Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Chicago
Illinois
Andrew Wegman Bird
Andrew W. Bird
Song
Spontaneity
Come
Backgrounds
Play
Pops
Folks
Jazz
Appreciate
Least
Within
Parameters

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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I've always had levity in my songs, so I like to turn things over, twist them around, and make fun of myself.
Andrew Bird
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I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
Andrew Bird
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I have some irrepressible pop impulses to write an appealing, concise song. And I also have some irrepressible kind of restlessness as well, and I need to keep myself interested. When I'm left to my own devices, there's a struggle.
Andrew Bird
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It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, Great, I get to remake my song.
Andrew Bird
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I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.
Andrew Bird
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People who are thinking about your music almost as much as you are, that almost never happens.
Andrew Bird
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A day off after a show with no agenda in a foreign city is about the most fertile creative situation I can imagine. Just walking with nothing to do, killing time and hearing the sights and sounds of an unfamiliar place.
Andrew Bird
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There's been this perception that Europeans still hold on to, that they discover the real talented ones in American culture and give them proper credit and that's not true anymore - it used to be. A lot of jazz musicians would get respect in Europe.
Andrew Bird
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I also don't believe that everything happens for a reason, which is in a similar category of world-views.
Andrew Bird
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I've literally opened it up to suggestions and it's totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don't need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you're showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness.
Andrew Bird
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I'm just trying to get my body in shape so that I can handle it. It's a very physically demanding thing. I've been doing it for 16 years, so I know what I'm going into now. I'm trying to stay calm and not panic.
Andrew Bird
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I think any songwriter or record, no matter how good it is, can become tedious if it's the same person's point of view. After four tracks, you start to get worn down no matter how good it is. It can be relentlessly good, but it's still going to wear you out.
Andrew Bird
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I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.
Andrew Bird
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I've always found that whatever you say about indie rock, it is the most inclusive genre or title for anything. It doesn't pin you down too much, like other labels would. It's just newer, it has less baggage.
Andrew Bird
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The weirdest time is when I'm having to explain myself all day to journalists, and then I don't perform, so there's no release, just a lot of self-consciousness. Then what do you do with that at the end of the day? How do you release your brain from talking about yourself all day?
Andrew Bird
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Sometimes I just think we're not meant to fly halfway around the world in a day. That some kind of mutation is going to happen.
Andrew Bird
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The melodies come out so strong that I'm like, Oh, crap. It's really better if they could both be kind of able to compromise, but the melodies, even more recently, they come out very fully cast and formed.
Andrew Bird
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I have the barn, it's just kind of like a studio. Almost all artists have la studio to work in, and that's really what it is. A place to get away. I'll spend maybe four days out there if I can, just completely immersed - like where I don't bathe or brush my teeth for a few days, just get up and make coffee and experiment until the sun goes down.
Andrew Bird
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I just pay attention to what's in my head. That's my number-one rule.
Andrew Bird
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I'm not a home-studio guy. I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.
Andrew Bird