Andrew Bird Quotes
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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.
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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.
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In school I was painfully shy. But as soon as I had to get up in front of the class and give a book report, it was alarming - I'd suddenly be very articulate.
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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.
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Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
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I don't want technology to take me so far that I don't have to use my brain anymore. It's like GPS taking over and losing your internal compass. It's always got to be tactile, still organic.
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I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.
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Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
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There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.
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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.
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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.
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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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My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.
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Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.
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I create little challenges for myself, like, 'Okay, whatever you do in this song, you've got to somehow work in Greek Cypriots,' or something like that.
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I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.
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Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.
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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. I'm happy to be in that category.
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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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I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
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My mom had this romantic notion of her children playing classical music. The idea is you learn it when you're still learning language. It's using the same part of the brain.
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There was a fascinating handmade poster scene in Chicago in the '90s, and I became friends with many of the artists; the posters were often more impressive than the bands.
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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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Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. They're all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. They're tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.