This week, we’re sharing reflections from Bob Boilen on a new record of songs and audio based around birds — plus, a Tiny Desk concert from JID.
Bob Boilen
This week, All Songs Considered featured a conversation about an enormous new compilation album inspired by birds, including contributions from Laurie Anderson, Cassandra Jenkins, Yo-Yo Ma, Beck, The Flaming Lips, Andrew Bird, Terry Riley and many more. My colleague Bob Boilen has really been enjoying the album lately — especially since he’s also recently gotten into birdwatching. So I asked him to tell me a little about what drew him to the release. Here’s what he wrote:
I’ve become obsessed. Around 7 a.m. most mornings I grab my camera and my special lens and go looking for birds. Hummingbirds are my favorite, but so are the blue herons and northern mockingbirds, eastern bluebirds, yellow finches … and the list gets longer with new discoveries. Before COVID, I’d photograph 500-plus bands a year, but in March of 2020 all that came to an abrupt halt — now, it’s all for the birds. They’re beautiful and also more challenging to capture than a lead guitarist or a closed-eyed singer. And as I’ve discovered birding, I became hyper aware of references to birds in my music listening: the lyrical imagery, the sounds, synthesizers mimicking birds. Start listening for these things and you’ll hear what I mean.
Then along comes Randall Poster, a music supervisor for Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese films. He was living in New York City in early 2020 when the cars stopped and his neighborhood hushed. He and his friend Rebecca Reagan began to notice the sounds of birds, and they had the idea to reach out to artists and have them write songs and poems about birds. Now, an astonishing 242 original works are part of this amazing collection called For The Birds: The Birdsong Project. I spoke to Randall Poster on this week’s All Songs Considered. Give a listen. And I thought I had a thing for birds!
—Bob Boilen, All Songs Considered
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