Hungarian-Swedish electroacoustic composer Ákos Rózmann incorporated bird vocalisations in his 1987 Rhythms and Melodies, a piece that – its Buddhist connections notwithstanding – follows the narrative of the Book of Revelation and also shortly quotes its text. Making use of archival sources, the article presents a conceptual shift in the compositional process by which bird sounds lost their utopian connotations and acquired dystopian ones, moving from the peaceful ending of the apocalyptic timeline to its turbulent middle part. The author provides a broad context to his argument by touching upon four of Rózmann’s other compositions (Birds and Humans - the fourth movement of the second version of Impulsioni - Images of the Dream and Death, Twelve Stations and Balls), and presenting the role of birds in the composer’s Swedish cultural environment.