Top 80 Andrew Bird Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Just don’t let the human factor fail to be a factor at all.”

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

4. “I’m a terrible Scrabble player.”

— Andrew Bird

5. “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

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

— Andrew Bird

7. “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

8. “What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It’s birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it’s spectacular. And it worked out.”

— Andrew Bird

9. “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

10. “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

11. “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?”

— Andrew Bird

12. “Pretty much any given day, barring some major distraction, I get melodies coming to me. Lyrics don’t come quite as easily. So I’ve been inventing little projects and challenges to sort of kick my ass with the lyrics.”

— Andrew Bird

13. “I also don’t believe that “everything happens for a reason,” which is in a similar category of world-views.”

— Andrew Bird

14. “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

15. “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

16. “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.”

— Andrew Bird

17. “I really like the sound of analog things where clearly there’s something being touched. You can sense that something is handmade. So much with digital, there’s a disconnect.”

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

19. “I didn’t have the patience for the research, or anything like that. I just like how it sets the imagination off. It’s just an area that’s very fertile for great words. Great metaphors, potentially.”

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

21. “Sometimes I just think we’re not meant to fly halfway around the world in a day. That some kind of mutation is going to happen.”

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

24. “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

25. “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

26. “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

27. “I don’t like to disappear between records. I like to play shows while I’m making the record.”

— Andrew Bird

28. “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

29. “Anyway, I’m digressing, but this is just kind of this 10-and-a-half-minute, ambient – you hear cicadas and birds and the wind outside and crickets as I’m swelling the piece. I could never do that on a pop record. I could, but why would I want to be agitating?”

— Andrew Bird

30. “I definitely have to give myself permission, like on “Master Swarm,” to rip a lead on that. Just play a violin solo that’s – it’s a bit showoff-y, but it’s fun, so who cares?”

— Andrew Bird

31. “I’m not a home-studio guy. 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

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

— Andrew Bird

33. “I think any songwriter or record, no matter how good it is, can become tedious if it’s the same person’s point of view. After four tracks, you start to get worn down no matter how good it is. It can be relentlessly good, but it’s still going to wear you out.”

— Andrew Bird

34. “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

35. “There’s kind of this unequaled thrill of playing a half-finished song, it’s kind of sense of slight embarrassment; like you’re blushing. I like doing that. I did that with “Eyeoneye” and it was almost a curse on the song for a while; I debuted it when it was half-finished in a very public way.”

— Andrew Bird

36. “I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.”

— Andrew Bird

37. “I think I’m still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.”

— Andrew Bird

38. “I’ve never approached classical music in a formal way, ever. I couldn’t read very well. I’d have to play every piece and internalize it, almost as if I had written it myself.”

— Andrew Bird

39. “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

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

— Andrew Bird

41. “I can’t relate to the process of just disappearing and writing a record, all at the same time, followed by the sort of drudgery of going out on tour and trying to recreate the record, playing the same 12 songs every night.”

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

43. “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

44. “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

45. “It’s not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, “Great, I get to remake my song.””

— Andrew Bird

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

— Andrew Bird

47. “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

48. “I’ve literally opened it up to suggestions and it’s totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don’t need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you’re showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness.”

— Andrew Bird

49. “The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It’s hard trying to keep it together.”

— Andrew Bird

50. “It’s like you don’t know you’re making a record unless you’re half-killing yourself.”

— Andrew Bird