Songfacts®:

• Andrew Bird changed his writing style on Are You Serious as a result of getting married to Minnesota singer-songwriter Haley Bonar. This track finds him contemplating the implications of becoming a father. He told DIY magazine: "If you think your 20s are full of romance, heartbreak and misery just wait until it gets real and you bring a life in to this world. This song is designed to make sure you don't look away."
• Bird told NPR how producer Tony Berg used pictures to help craft this song: "He kept pulling up images of the Dust Bowl, of those many-mile high storms going across the plains, in Oklahoma, in the thirties, and what inspired Woody Guthire to write, 'So Long, It's Been Good To Know Ya,'" said the singer. "He would point to that and say, 'I want it to sound like that!'"
  
  "And that is a little more abstract as opposed to voice leadings and all the geeky theory stuff; that's more in the category of lighting candles and incense, and setting a mood. But it was good to have a visual."