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Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

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
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Ceremony
Arbitrary
Somewhat
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More quotes by 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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With the words, a lot of things start with questions. Some word kind of piques my interest, and I love the way it sounds, but I really don't know what it means. And I honestly don't care for a while.
Andrew Bird
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What you see with your eyes when you're making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.
Andrew Bird
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There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.
Andrew Bird
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The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.
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 think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.
Andrew Bird
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You can build up expectations for a song before you record it, and then it's like nothing's good enough in the studio.
Andrew Bird
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I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
Andrew Bird
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It's like you don't know you're making a record unless you're half-killing yourself.
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 still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
Andrew Bird
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There is something comforting about going into a practice room, putting your sheet music on a stand and playing Bach over and over again.
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'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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What's cool about indie rock is that one band can do effectively the same thing as another band, and one band nails it, and the other one doesn't. I like that elusiveness.
Andrew Bird
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I'm coming from a place that's more experimental and indulgent already, so for the last 10 years, it's been more like, How can I defend my own sensibilities by writing a nugget of a little catchy pop song? That's how I'm stretching myself, by writing something really simple.
Andrew Bird
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The music that I write is often not necessarily full of doom and gloom. You'll notice in most of the darkest songs, the music is actually pretty peaceful and lulling.
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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I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.
Andrew Bird