It think there are several things wrong with this version. Here's what I heard, and you can consolidate as you see fit. I'm sure I've made more than a few mistakes:

The finches and sparrows build nests in my chimney With remains of the small flightless birds that you failed to protect
But the yolk isn't easy in fact it's a drag
As they're blowin' through cornfields and mountains of rags
All over the suburbs across the great lawns
And they're cropdusting gardens all over this town

But nobody cares when it gets in their hair
It gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
It gets in the food that they buy and prepare
But nobody cares when it gets in their hair

Across the great chasms and schisms
And the sudden aneurysms
Where the black ink will drip across the crispus of your eyes and your teeth
They're worth more than you can spare
Oh, don't tell me that it just isn't fair
Don't speak about the cycles of life
'Cause your thoughts are so soft I can cut 'em with a spork, or a bride's knife

And the wine made our mouths too loose
Such a reckless choice of words
When you told me that I'm too abstruse
I just thought it was a kinda bird
I swear, I just stood there
Not saying a word

"But their yolk isn't easy / in fact it's a drag"

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus (who dragged a cross) says, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Here are the lyrics that the song sheet gives:

The finches and sparrows build nests in my chimney
what remains of the small flightless birds that you failed to protect

but their yolk isn't easy in fact it's a drag
as they're blowing through cornfields and mountains of rags

all over the suburbs
across the great lawns
crop-dusting gardens all over this town

but nobody cares when it gets in their hair
it gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
it gets in the food that they buy and prepare
but nobody cares when it gets in their hair

across the great chasms and schisms
and the sudden aneurisms
where the black ink will drip
across the crespice of your
eyes and your teeth
are worth more than you can spare-
-oh don't tell me that it just isn't fair
don't speak about the cycles of life
'cause your thoughts are so soft
I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife

and the wine made our mouths too loose
such a reckless choice of words
when you tell me that I'm too obstruce
I just thought it was a kind of bird
I just stood there not saying a word x 3

---
as for what I think of the song, initially I get the feeling that it's about some sort of slippery-slope dealio: you don't care if it gets in your hair, and by then the black ink will start getting to other places, and before you know it, most birds are already dead and are a drag, and your thoughts and your conscience lose strength until they can be cut with a spork. just a first impression.

For what it's worth, in comments at NewCityChicago.com he says, "`Spare-Ohs' deals with the remains of animals or humans, and that getting into your food or skin or hair. Themes of mortality."

Is crespice a real word? Maybe it's a blend of 'crest' and 'precipice?'

I appreciate what I see as a bit of self-mockery when he uses an archaic spelling for "abstruse."

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It's probably just me, but when he talks about eyes and teeth and fairness so close together, I think of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." In environmental terms, he could be saying that we've made a mess of the planet - birds being a stand-in for nature - and disastrous consequences follow. I think the slippery slope idea could easily apply to the environment.

I think there's definitely an environmental connection. Andrew Bird's tour has gone green and he was making a pretty big deal about donating to become carbon neutral, etc.

For more accurate Andrew Bird lyrics and community commentary, etc. go check out:
www.AndrewBird.org

weird-- I didn't even realize that "crespice" wasn't a word. and themes of mortality, huh. well, all the birds have already started dying, and what with the soft thoughts and aneurysms wanting to speak about the cycles of life, it's only a matter of time before you do too. yeah, I'm not sure.

Is it just too obvious, or why has no one commented on the pun of something "getting in your hair" as an idiom for an annoyance? As JasonBunting points out elsewhere in the lyrics to "This Is Not A Song About A Train," this song contains elements of those lyrics - the idea of dead bodies as smoke getting into things, and even a call to the EPA. But here the expression is both literal and metaphorical, taken a little further. I like the way that reinforces the environmental slippery slope idea, how an annoyance grows more serious through inattention.

"Yeah, I had 26 chickens and now I have zero chickens. I wasn’t able to keep the raccoons away from the chickens. And then for a year after that happened the chicken feathers are still around from the massacre. There’s just hundreds and hundreds of sparrows around my barn and they were taking the chicken feathers and stuffing my chimney with them to make nests. And then I would have a fire and I would see the smoke coming out and I would see little feathers reminding me of how I let down the chickens. And the whole line, “Don't speak about the cycles of life 'cause your thoughts are so soft I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife.” The whole cycle of life thing was so apparent I was like, "Oh come on, this is just too obvious." Yeah, but then it also kind of talks about the implications of the cremations and the remains of animals and people floating and landing in our hair without us knowing it." --misterbird

http://www.gothamist.com/2007/05/16/andrew_bird_musician.php

does anyone have thoughts about why he named it "spare-ohs"? i can't think of anything past the obvious homophony with "sparrows"

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actually, he has said what it is about during a concert once..

as a child living on a farm, he had the job of making sure all of the chickens were safe from harm.. (a fox)
sadly, he says that he wasn't very good at his job and had often found a horrid sight by next morning... the feathers from the now diseased chickens were often carried in the house chimney by sparrows---(hints the name, spare-ohs) to be made into nests... once again, a sad ending to these birds' lives as well (living in a fireplace) the feathers from these birds had traveled through the house and into there food, hair, but no one seemed to care.... a sad memory of andrew's that makes a beautiful song and story...

yes, i saw him 2 days ago (9th nov) in london and he gave a pretty similar description - great performance too.

And your teeth are worth more than you can *spare
Oh* don’t tell me that it just isn’t fair

maybe that has to do with the title?
i was listening to this song this morning, and thinking "this song must be about chickens" the whole day. i think that's kind of funny now that i see the story behind the song.

This has been one of my favorite songs lately. Although the stories above are believable and there are several good comments so far ("spare-ohs" and the yolk reference), I think that there is a lot more to this song.

I think his personal experience with the chickens starts if off. He rolls the story of the fallen chickens and ubiquitous feathers into the lines "all over the suburbs / across the great lawns / crop-dusting gardens all over this town" which are fairly clear commentaries on modern suburbia and people's general lack of care about the blanketing of foliage with chemicals and the plight of animals (such as chickens). This is probably connected to the his "greeness" as describe above, and also he seems to be saying that the burden of the event ("the yolk is a drag") weighs on him as he is reminded of it by the feathers that fall all over the town that no one seems to mind.

The second verse seems to be a conversation in which he relates the severity of his experience with the chickens to someone else, saying that they don't understand what he is saying, to the point of them being seperated by "great chasms and schisms" including that which lies within (through the crespice of the eyes), and that the listener's response is either simple or naive: "don't speak about the cycles of life / 'cause your thoughts are so soft / I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife", as if to say that there is no substance to the words he receives in response.

The he follows with more bird references, which seem to refer to himself -- his name is Andrew Bird afterall, and the reference at the end "when you tell me that I'm too obstruce / I just thought it was a kind of bird" probably reflects a lot of his personal experiences being different/creative and having people say strange things to him, as if to say "what did you say about me? Are you saying that I'm a "strange bird" somehow? To which he follows "I just stood there not saying a word" which describes the exasperation one has in the situation -- having just related something intense and personal all he gets in response is the comment that he's a little weird.



The finches and sparrows build nests in my chimney
what remains of the small flightless birds that you failed to protect

but their yolk isn't easy in fact it's a drag
as they're blowing through cornfields and mountains of rags

all over the suburbs
across the great lawns
crop-dusting gardens all over this town

but nobody cares when it gets in their hair
it gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
it gets in the food that they buy and prepare
but nobody cares when it gets in their hair

across the great chasms and schisms
and the sudden aneurisms
where the black ink will drip
across the crespice of your
eyes and your teeth
are worth more than you can spare-
-oh don't tell me that it just isn't fair
don't speak about the cycles of life
'cause your thoughts are so soft
I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife

and the wine made our mouths too loose
such a reckless choice of words
when you tell me that I'm too obstruce
I just thought it was a kind of bird
I just stood there not saying a word x 3

i know for a fact this song is about a truck drive that snorts crystel meth of of an atles

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this song made me think of a documentary i saw recently entitled "king corn" which shows how our largest crop in the US is corn, and how it seems to be in every thing from the beef we eat to sodas to mcdonald's. Anyways, if you want to know more go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCRwMMh9k8
it's a really eye-opening film, and the part where andrew bird is talking about it getting in your hair is all to reminiscent of the film.

When examined in the context of This Is Not A Song About A Train, the story about the chickens getting killed, and Andrew Bird's own words as related by akindabird above, at least two layers of meaning become apparent.

The first is the literal: there are dead things burning up and getting in our hair.
The second is on a more abstract macroscopic scale: the cycle of life is obvious, ignored, but no less mysterious and meaningful.

Reading the song as an environmentalist manifesto or song about extinction is a bit of a stretch, except insofar as the meaningful cycle of life invoked by the ashes of the chickens implies the interconnectedness of all life (and death) on Earth, and the song's meaning can therefore encompass such topics indirectly. Blades of Grass, and all that. ;)

When I saw him play this live, he told the backstory of this song. He had tried to nurse a sparrow that had a broken wing, but it died and he felt very said that he couldn't save/protect that bird despite the effort he put into it. He cremated the bird and that is what this part is about:

'but nobody cares when it gets in their hair
it gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
it gets in the food that they buy and prepare
but nobody cares when it gets in their hair'

It's about the ashes getting in peoples hair and food. Sort of a circle of live. That is the basic meaning of this song, but if you read the lyrics you notice the brilliance he put into the words.

I just remembered that that wasn't how the story went at all.

What it was was this:

Andrew Bird has a farm somewhere on the east coast. He had chickens that were kept in a coop. He would try to protect them from foxes (or coyotes, I don't remember which) but the foxes or coyotes would keep getting into the coop and Andrew Bird couldn't protect his chickens. All that would be left of the chickens would be their feathers, which would be picked up by sparrows and carried to their nests in Andrew Bird's chimney. When he would start a fire in the fireplace, the nests would all be incinerated and turned to ashes which would end up in people's hair and food.

Sorry about that.
-Sean

when i saw him last summer, the explanation he gave was that he asked a friend to care for his chickens while he was away on tour("that YOU failed to protect"), but a fox killed all his birds. in his story, "nobody cares when it gets in their hair" seemed pretty literal.

I could have sworn it was
'sordid mannerisms'
instead of
'sudden aneurysms'

Is that just me?