Andrew Bird Quotes

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?

I write a lot more when I’m happy, because you’re hopeful, you’re motivated.

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.

Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.

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.

The first splurge of creativity is kind of free, and the last 30 percent is painstakingly hard work, but it’s good to light a fire and make it public and create that expectation. It’s become part of the writing process, really, a way to ask the audience what they think, how they think it’s going. I can’t write songs in a vacuum.

I’m a terrible Scrabble player.

What you see with your eyes when you’re making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.

I just pay attention to what’s in my head. That’s my number-one rule.

Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness.

The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.

I’ve always felt that dark lyrics with dark music is pretty useless. Maybe that’s a strong statement – not useless, but for me, it’s just boring.