Andrew Bird on "vitriolic" comments on his pieces at the "Measure For Measure" blog:

My first response to some of the comments was “Wow, that’s cold,” then, “Oh, but you haven’t been listening” — and then, “Really, you speak as if I have some choice over what I write and if I have some obligation to address the things you or the average American might care about.”

There’s a whole industry devoted to writing songs pitched toward a certain demographic. All I can do is write about what I care about and hope you might relate. And if not, here are some sweet melodies. This is my life’s work and I’ve been immersed in it so long that I can’t really extract one from the other. So I kept envisioning one of those bumper stickers on the back of a semi-trailer that says, “How’s my driving? Call…” I kept thinking, “How’s my living?” as if I were taking suggestions.