If Rich Swanger’s previous single, the awfully good “Awfully Good,” ran on a fast pace and a snappy groove, this time out, we find him taking a slower approach, making his point through more poised and drawn-out lyrics and more spatially aware sonics. And “Time is a Bird*‘s more relaxed and whilfully languid vibes are perfect for both a song that explores the nature of existence and the passage of time, and also for a song that took him 15 years to finish.
If he takes his lyrical inspiration from the writings of mythologist and author Joseph Campbell (read The Masks of God, it’s excellent), then musically, there are gorgeous hints of everything from Wilco’s deft pen to The Beatles sonic palette to Jellyfish’s more subtle psychedelia—then the result is a perfect meeting of mind and music, academia and artistry.
Swanger admits that he is at a loss to understand why the song was left unfinished for so long. Maybe the time wasn’t right. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to understand the song he was trying to write. Maybe the song itself wasn’t prepared to reveal its secrets just yet.
But interestingly, it now means that the song is about itself as much as it is about vaguer notions of time as a concept—a song that is, in itself, about how sometimes a song knows when the time is right for the artist to realise its full potential.
And timing, and indeed time, is everything!
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