Quote

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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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
Wells
Impulse
Well
Interested
Irrepressible
Need
Struggle
Concise
Needs
Song
Restlessness
Writing
Write
Impulses
Left
Appealing
Kind
Keep
Devices
Also
Pops

More quotes by 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.
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Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.
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I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
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Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness.
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The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.
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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.
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Just don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all
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My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.
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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.
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Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.
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If you take a little time, let's say three weeks off, after recording a song, and you listen to it every other day, you're just going to know eventually.
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I really believe there's more honesty in one live show than there may be in my whole output.
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Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
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The orchestra's an amazing instrument, but I don't want to just arrange my songs for it. I think that might be kind of boring and a little bit overdramatic, perhaps. I'm still just having too much fun doing it my way, for the time being.
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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.
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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.
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I put a lot into my records, and I won't release anything I'm not totally thrilled with.
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Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. Theyre all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. Theyre tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.
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There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear it, and wanting to really stretch out. I think it's a healthy tension.
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I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.
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