Songwriter Andrew Bird on how he writes a song:
It’s kind of a racket. When I step onstage I feel myself adopting that comedian’s posture, a shrug of the shoulders that says, “I don’t know, folks. We’re all just puzzling through it together. I’m not going to pretend to have the answers but here’s what I’ve seen.”
To emerge from creative hibernation with my perfect oeuvre and worldview fully realized feels stifling and boring. And while I’m anything but an exhibitionist I have this perverse impulse to introduce half-written songs and invite the trouble that it might bring. Maybe I’m saying to my former teachers, “Look, by your standards I’m failing, but it feels great.” But mostly it’s that I just prefer a fluid questioning present to a fixed past.
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