Quote

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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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
Creative
Hearing
Sound
Killing
Sights
Show
Sight
Unfamiliar
Shows
City
Fertile
Place
Walking
Agenda
Nothing
Cities
Agendas
Time
Imagine
Foreign
Situation
Sounds

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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I don't like super-descriptive modern fiction. I like, Here's what was happening in 1582 all over the planet. Then that gets my imagination going.
Andrew Bird
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Anyway, I'm digressing, but this is just kind of this 10-and-a-half-minute, ambient - you hear cicadas and birds and the wind outside and crickets as I'm swelling the piece. I could never do that on a pop record. I could, but why would I want to be agitating?
Andrew Bird
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Sometimes the word dictated the melody.
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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There's songs that could either be taken as a conversation between two people, like The Privateers, or Why, from a much earlier record. Or Glass Figurine. That's my version of a relationship song.
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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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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I put a lot into my records, and I won't release anything I'm not totally thrilled with.
Andrew Bird
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I'm into lately being a little less precious about writing and being like, Okay, what if I just locked myself in my room, pretend that there's someone outside with a gun that's saying, 'Don't come out until you write something.'
Andrew Bird
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Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness.
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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The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It's hard trying to keep it together.
Andrew Bird
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Some of your best songs come from a desperate attempt to escape, so sitting in an airport for hours I can just start pulling out little fragments of songs from my head. A lot of times a melody will just occur to me and be my companion for a couple of months.
Andrew Bird
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The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.
Andrew Bird
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Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.
Andrew Bird
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Pretty much any given day, barring some major distraction, I get melodies coming to me. Lyrics don't come quite as easily. So I've been inventing little projects and challenges to sort of kick my ass with the lyrics.
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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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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Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha.
Andrew Bird
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I think life is a wondrous thing. I'm happy to try pretty hard.
Andrew Bird