Andrew Bird

In college I took a poetry class...you know, for the ladies. Anyhoo, it seems the underlying meaning of all the great poems we analyzed revolved around the poet's struggle to writing great poetry. My young grad student teacher who unironically wore a bow tie would blurt out some shit like ' YOU SEE? traveling along the streets in between buildings, in the second verse, is like the journey of writing lines in a notebook'. Connecting the metaphors to the underlying meaning was always pretty exciting to me and I was always surprised to learn how common this theme was: Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, even Billy Shakes did this shit. 

Once you dive into the anal depths of poetry you realize a lot of poetry is about fucking poetry. Even the poems I initially thought were about a loved one, were actually about the poets love....of fucking poetry. Knowing this makes it hard critique a writer's genuineness. 

This always made me wonder why, lyrically, there aren't many songs about writing songs. Now, I'm not a song writer. I just don't have that shit in me.....I wish I did, but I have to imagine a song-writer's struggle and frustrations to create would be similar to that of a poet's. After all, lyrics are poetry, but with a melody and put to music. Words and a fucking cadence. 

Anyhoo, this message (writing about writing) will always have depth because a critical listener can't second guess the struggle if they are hearing the result of said struggle. It's much easier to question the authenticity of an emotion....in let's say a love song. How do you know a song-writer is not just writing a love song because it's easy. Does he/she really love? Does it sound shallow? 

Maybe I'm skeptical. 

This brings me to Andrew Bird's new video for 'Left Handed Kisses', a song about writing a love song. Something that is so common to him that even 'Oceans' have him writing love songs.

and

AND, the song is a duet with Fiona Apple. 

I love this song and I love this video on so many different levels. 

Now, I don't have an official list of my favorite singers, but if I did, both Andrew Bird and Fiona Apple would be present. The clarity of Andrew Bird's voice. The smokeyness of Fiona's voice. And as we find out in this video, they go together like butter lettuce and petunias.

And I love the way the play off of each other like they are an old married couple. It's kinda cute and it's kinda intense. But there is a part in the video when Fionna steals Bird's patented whistling part by using a slide whistle and I realized something......

Andrew Bird is Fiona Apple. 

Fiona Apple is Andrew Bird.....or at least his subconscious, who he's having an argument with. He's questioning the motives for his love songs and debating whether they are worthy. Whether they are genuine, whether they are played out. And he's rather hard on himself when he sings lines like:

"All your left handed kisses were a prelude to another...a prelude to your back-handed love song." 
or 
"The point that you are missing is that if you really love me, you would risk more than a few 50 cent words in your back handed love songs."

Fuck. I don't know why but I just love that introspective debate with one's self. And I love that he let me in on the thought process. 

It's exactly the thoughts I'd have in my head if I were talented enough to write a song and then release it to the world. 

This video and song reaffirms that an artist's toughest critic is themselves.  That emotion is genuine and identifiable. So why not write about it more?