Fingerlings 3 is the third in Andrew Bird’s series of live albums called Fingerlings. Unlike the previous Fingerlings, Fingerlings 3 contains songs not recorded live in front of an audience;"Dear Dirty" is a studio track and"The Water Jet Cilice" and"Ethiobirds" were recorded live (solo) at Andrew’s home studio in a barn in rural western Illinois. Tracks"Dark Matter" and “Scythian Empire" are live recordings of songs that were later included on Bird's 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha.