Masterswarm; Andrew Bird

Bird told Drowned in Sound that in this song he continues the idea in “Oh No” “of another consciousness beneath our skin.” He explained: “I wrote this after I got food poisoning in the Rocky Mountains. I was impressed by the body’s override function. It knows what must be done. This then connects to groups or swarms of birds, fish or insects that seem to move as one with their own surface tension. Nature’s brain.”

Come what may
Lay your eggs where it’s warm
We come here to swarm
Come by sea
Swarm like smoke in the dawn
We were the young
We were the swarm

Radiolarians
Midges and moths
Out from a cloth
We were the young
We were the swarm

Flailing fetal fleas
Feeding from the arms of the master
Burrow into me
And this is sure to misspell disaster
Oh and the young in the larval stage
Orchestrating plays
In vestments of translucent alabaster

So they took me to the hospital
They put my body through a scan
What they saw there would impress them all
For inside me grows a man
Who speaks with perfect diction
As he orders my eviction
As he acts with more conviction
Than I

Oh, burrow into me
This is sure to misspell disaster
Oh, burrow into me
You're feeding from the arms of the master

We were the young
We were the swarm
We were the young
Radiolarians

We were the young
We were the swarm
We were the young
Radiolarians

We were the young
We were the swarm
We were the young
Radiolarians

Come what may
Come what may
Come