Stu described the song as a “series of questions” centered on spread 4th chord voicings. It’s hard to put it better than that. “The Bird Song” is a bright track where Stu asks existential questions about nature’s reaction to humanity's industrialized society, such as “to a bird what’s a plane?” and “to a tree what’s a house?” The answers to these questions are vague, open-ended or not answers at all (“is that even relevant?”). Following a steady rhythm and bass line with harp and orchestral flourishes, the track is upbeat yet makes us ask questions of ourselves concerning our relationship with the world around us.
The song started as a simple guitar idea according to Stu but would become a tough song to get down. In a 2019 Reddit AMA Stu mentioned that it took the band multiple attempts to get “The Bird Song” right. A year later he expanded upon this, saying that they had recorded four different takes of the song with the final one being the version they used. Two of these alternate takes have been released. The first, on Demos Vol. 1: Music To Kill Bad People To, starts with a swinging yet soft hi-hat driven section followed by a very reserved take on the song’s structure, with an electric organ playing a variation on the vocal melody. This version has some structural differences but is quite close to the final version. The second appeared on Demos Vol. 4: Music to Die To and is close to the first with an added guitar part on top of the instrumental, as well as a new ending. This take gets even closer to the studio version, but is still off in a number of ways. Footage of the band playing the song in its early demo form can be seen in How to gut a Fishie.
The liner notes for Fishing For Fishies indicate that the studio version of “The Bird Song” was recorded entirely at Flightless HQ in September 2018 by Stu, with overdubs recorded by Cook and Stu lasting until November. The final version was mixed by Sam Joseph and removes the fast jazz groove heard in the demos, replacing it with a more straightforward rhythm. Played by Stu (piano/vocals/Mellotron/flute/bass/organ), Cavs (drums/conga/tambourine) and Cook (bass), “The Bird Song” would be released after much work on April 24th, 2019 as the fourth single for Fishing For Fishies, which would be released two days later on the 26th.
“The Bird Song” made its live debut on 2019-06-26 and was played throughout 2019 as a standalone song, though often played next to “This Thing.” It was performed once in 2020 on 2020-02-09 but was never played again. A quick soundcheck of the song was featured in RATTY alongside a brief discussion about how the crowd reacts to it.