For Imperial music, you're connected to all songs considered. I'm Bob Boyland.

Ah, the sounds of birds.

When the pandemic first hit, Randall Postor, a New York City resident noticed not only the hush of the city,

but became hyperaware of the birds in his neighborhood.

I have a colleague who I've worked with over the years, named Rebecca Reagan,

who is a pretty active conservationist, environmentalist.

And we were talking about it, and she said, well, I have this idea that I'm calling for the birds,

where we would invite artists, musicians to create music,

built around bird song, to celebrate the joys, and the beauty in bird song.

And by drawing attention to it, would also make people aware of the various crises facing bird life.

And so Randall Postor, a music supervisor for filmmakers, including Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese,

began to reach out to the various artists in this musical world to see if there was interest in creating songs and audio based around birds.

The project, For the Birds, the Bird Song Project, is a collection of 242 original songs and poems about birds

by artists from all walks of life, including Laurie Anderson, John Kale, Alice Coltrane, Cassandra Jenkins,

Yo-Yo Ma, Nick Zinner, Beck, the flaming lips, Terry Riley, and of course, Andrew Bird and Jeff Tweedy.

I begin the conversation with Randall Postor, wondering about the first recordings he received.

You know, I figured, starting out that film composers would be a good place to start because generally they have home studios,

they tend to be able to be responsive to sort of abstract notions or inspirations.

The first track that we got in was by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, four days after we asked for it.

Let me play a little bit of Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, it's all called Wooddove.

Walk out into the fields, morning does are calling, calling to you and me alone,

there's some rises only here, only those are calling, they are calling always calling,

...