[gtalk stat]
geekgoat: thinks Andrew Bird is a smart man


/start conversation

i don't think i can take anyone named Bird seriously
why do u say he's smart


hmmm
i interviewed him
had a lot of smart things to say


ooh you did? when?
what did he say that u rber/like most?


recently lah
email interview
hmmm

Is this abstractness in your lyrics a purported need to make your listeners run circles in dictionaries or is it an actual extension of how you are? Either way, why this is so?

AB: I appreciate that a listener would want to decipher what I'm talking about, but the pursuit of definition misses the point. When I listen to songs it could all be Portuguese as far as I'm concerned. Besides vagaries lead to the listener using their own imagination. When a song is fully comprehended it is more likely to be discarded - or at least that’s how I listen.

haha.. i disagree with him
read this
C.S. Lewis on Why to Seek an Author's Intention

In answering the question why we should care about an author’s intention, C. S. Lewis gives two answers in his book An Experiment in Criticism.

"Why," they ask, "should I turn from a real present experience—what the poem means to me, what happens to me when I read it—to inquire about the poet’s intentions or reconstructions, always uncertain of what it may have meant to his contemporaries?"

There seem to be two answers. One, is that the poem in my head which I make from my mistranslations of Chaucer or misunderstandings of Donne, may not be so good as the work Chaucer or Donne actually made.

Secondly, why not have both? After enjoying what I made of it, why not go back to the text this time looking up the hard words, puzzling out the allusions and discovering that some metrical delights in my first experience where due to my fortunate mispronunciations, and see whether I can enjoy the poet’s poem, not necessarily instead of, but in addition to my own

i would apply the same when listening to a song
unless it's an instrumental haha..
if meaning isn't important, he shd've gone without words, don't u think


no mah
even words can be interpreted differently
depending on context


it can be, but if i was reading/listening to your work, i want to know wad u were thinking, but at the same time enjoy what i make of it.. so to know that you are js messing with my head with some random stuff, a bit demeaning lor.
-___- at myself: it's js a song
LOL


wah you darn complicated


im not. but i like to make ppl think that i am. haha..


nah

Here’s something that fascinates me - do you in actual fact speak the way you write? Do you use all those huge words in daily conversation? Is it normal for Andrew Bird to use the word ‘radiolarian’ in everyday conversation for example?

AB: No, of course not. Songwriting and the language I'm drawn to is maybe an escape from the everyday vernacular. Expressing yourself in a matter of fact way helps get you through the day but it’s rarely lyrical. I look for beautiful sounding words yes, but they are far from random. Radiolarians are these undersea slimy creatures that apparently communicate in an electrical sort of telekinesis. I could have used a flock of birds or school of fish to make my point but that would seem cliche or new-agey.

haha i like this thought. i like songs with inordinary words. which is why "some" "worship" songs make me go -___-


ahahaha


/end


NB. "inordinary" is not a word. but it should be, cos "un-" is such a boring pre-fix. :P

[ok ok. i'll admit it. i really did think that it was a word. >_<]