Today, on the New York Times Blog, Andrew Bird describes songwriting, recording, etc.. Very interesting.

The record I want to make here and now — the one I wish I could find in my local record store — is a gentle, lulling, polyrhythmic, minimalist yet warm tapestry of acoustic instruments. No solos, just interlocking parts. A little Steve Reich, but groovier. A little Ghanaian street music, but more arranged. Thick and creamy vocals like the Zombies’s Colin Blunstone. The bass warm and tubby like Studio One dub.

On the lyrics:

The only thing that separates a mess of seemingly disparate observations and a song is a moment of excessive confidence. As time goes on words and ideas begin to catch and gather around the original suspiciously arbitrary seeds of inspiration. There are times when I must admit that all the verse has in common with the chorus is that they both came out of my imagination, but isn’t that enough?

...

Lyrically, I decided to go with “calcified arhythmatist” rather than “unemployed ex-physicist.” It also sounds like arithmatist, as in one who does arithmetic, which makes just as much sense. I’m not sure if this is correct but don’t really care. I enjoy misunderstanding other people’s lyrics and take pleasure in others misunderstanding mine. I’m not suggesting that meaning is unimportant, but words like these on the fringe of meaning can spark the imagination.

But, better than just that one article, it's actually from the NYT musicians blog, Measure For Measure, where Bird, Roseanne Cash, Darrell Brown and Suzanne Vega blog about music. Excellent.