Top 117 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Bird

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Andrew Bird.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Andrew Wegman Bird is an American indie rock multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Since 1996, he has released 16 studio albums, as well as several live albums and EPs, spanning various genres including swing music, indie rock, and folk music. He is primarily known for his unique style of violin playing, accompanied by loop and effect pedals, whistling, and voice. In the 1990s, he sang and played violin in several jazz ensembles, including Squirrel Nut Zippers and Kevin O'Donnell's Quality Six. He went on to start his own swing ensemble, Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, which released three albums between 1998 and 2001. Weather Systems (2003) was his first solo album after Bowl of Fire disbandment, and it marked a departure from jazz music into indie music. Bird's 2019 album My Finest Work Yet was nominated for "Best Folk Album" at the 2020 Grammy Awards.

American - Musician | Born: July 11, 1973

Source: Wikipedia

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.

Andrew Bird

The fact that I wasn't expected to read music at all and was absorbing everything by ear... it had a huge affect on the kind of musician that I became.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.

Andrew Bird

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

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

Maybe it's just, I've always been to the less traveled places, in any topic, whether it's history, I always like to just choose the most obscure topic. And I don't know why I have that impulse. I can't really explain it but I've been doing that since I was a little kid.

Andrew Bird

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

Andrew Bird

Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.

Andrew Bird

There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

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

Andrew Bird

No, it's not dissatisfaction that inspires me to tinker with my songs, it's just restlessness.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

My head is full of shifting patterns and polyrhythmic stuff; but I want to use all acoustic instruments and create this kind of tapestry of interlocking lulling parts.

Andrew Bird

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.

Andrew Bird

I mean, you still can't jump offstage and go read a book. But I'm getting better at it. It is something you can manage. You can still give everything you have to the audience onstage, and have something for yourself.

Andrew Bird

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

Andrew Bird

I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.

Andrew Bird

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

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

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

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

The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

Andrew Bird

You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I'm going, or when I've lived in a place so long that there's no chance I could possibly get lost.

Andrew Bird

I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.

Andrew Bird

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

My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.

Andrew Bird

Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.

Andrew Bird

All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.

Andrew Bird

Usually bands with violins - it's this little, poorly amplified looking kind of futile on stage, and that's not the way that my music is put together.

Andrew Bird

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

Andrew Bird

A good espresso to me is a little bit salty; you just become used to a good taste. Anytime I go into a new place and they don't clean their machine properly or the water temperature isn't right, it tastes awful.

Andrew Bird

I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.

Andrew Bird

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

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.

Andrew Bird

I've always been fascinated and stared at maps for hours as a kid. I've especially been most intrigued by the uninhabited or lonelier places on the planet. Like Greenland, for instance, or just recently flying over Alaska and a chain of icy, mountainous islands, uninhabited.

Andrew Bird

The anti-aging advert that I would like to see is a baby covered in cream saying, 'Aah, I've used too much'

Andrew Bird

I think life is a wondrous thing. I'm happy to try pretty hard.

Andrew Bird

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

Norman is a very up-close, personal, character drama and I'd like to do something more zoomed out, a little more pastoral, some sweeping epic. I'd like to try something different.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

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

Andrew Bird

When I start asking my friends, "What do you think this means?" And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like "apocryphal," for instance.

Andrew Bird

Sometimes the word dictated the melody.

Andrew Bird

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.

Andrew Bird

I finished touring the last record and I started recording new .I never really left the bubble, which is I think a good thing. I was just very focused. Maybe I should have taken a break or something, and not done such a long push.

Andrew Bird

When I'm onstage, I'm completely comfortable, and I feel very vital and alive.

Andrew Bird

Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.

Andrew Bird

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. It's not trying to replace a band, per se. It's become a completely different thing. And it's not just simply an effect. It's just a very surprisingly intuitive thing.

Andrew Bird

I'm a terrible Scrabble player.

Andrew Bird

You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I’m going, or when I’ve lived in a place so long that there’s no chance I could possibly get lost.

Andrew Bird

Every time I make a record, it's kind of like scarification or something. You work 15 hours until you're stupid. You're just kind of all jittery.

Andrew Bird