209. Song No. 3,184: “Eyeoneye,” Andrew Bird
Break It Yourself, 2012

While “Lusitania” and especially “Sifters” leveled me with their bad timing and devastating lyrics (like, I was driving the first time the latter song hit me square in the heart, and I had to pull over before that caliber of emotion sickness caused an accident), it was “Eyeoneye”—the song from which this album takes its name—that rode in on a veritable cavalry of smirking self-awareness that hit way too close to home and, in doing so, endeared itself to me instantly.

From the first stirrings of its slurred orchestral intro, “Eyeoneye” sounded exactly like the kind of song I needed in my life, an introductory inkling that only proved to be more accurate as the track played on and expounded upon how the seemingly protective cocoon of the self-imposed isolation I have gravitated to for as long as I can remember is less of a sanctuary and more of a life sentence all full of the self-awareness at the root of my fondness for gin. Like, go check out the Genuis lyrics for this song and settle in for a micro therapy session.

Those little epiphanies nestled into the layers of Andrew Bird songs is why he’s one of those artists whose catalog is a bursting with compulsively listenable albums and charmingly persistent earworms doubling as a much-needed reminder that someone else sees the same world I do. While the much earlier Mysterious Production of Eggs made for a nearly perfect collegiate introduction to Andrew Bird’s quirkily poignant stylings, Break It Yourself really gave me the vocabulary to explain exactly why I love his music so much.

Break It Yourself is one of those albums that I love for how uncomfortably intimate it feels, making that introspection that never comes easy if you do it right at least materialize with some natural guidance. While a lot of its songs involve an external connection, “Eyeoneye” is all Man vs. Self and signs pointing to the dangers plaguing a journey of Self Against the World: isolation, safety that sacrifices dimension, deliberately denying yourself the richness of the whole, messy, vibrant experience of a fully-lived life. It’s an invitation and an assurance that going all-in and putting your heart on the line is worth it, that being an island is a miserable way to shut yourself off from the great and terrible beauty that makes life worth its inevitable nadirs.

This track stands in resolute opposition to so much of its littermates’ heartache born of confusing clouds for mountains and other dangers of letting your defenses fall to let someone else in. Yeah, it sucks when other people break your heart, but its infinitely sadder when no one can breach your barriers and you’re left to break it yourself. It’s a wryly glorious testament to the formative necessity of getting hurt when enemy canons fire at your heart and realizing that nothing heals properly in wounded isolation, that safe harbors are no place for a heart to convalesce, and that fighting the waves and whirls of coming ashore are just part of the experience of giving your heart away until it finds a home worth setting anchor for.