When Laurel and I first began dating, we made each other a series of mixtapes–not the most original idea, but it was an important part of our getting to know each other. For me, I decided to make a series of four discs BULL WORK BIRD SONG that were both a play on Laurel’s last name (Bastian = bastion = bulwark = BULL WORK) and presented a collection of connected, themed songs.

The first two discs (Bull and Work) featured only songs about animals (bulls, etc.) and the second two featured songs about birds and singing, respectively. Here’s the first disc, BULL:

[A few notes–the disc opened with a recording of Basil Bunting reading the first 40 seconds of his great poem Briggflatts: “Brag, sweet tenor bull … ” and featured a number of tracks that aren’t in Spotify’s library: The Maccabees’ “Young Lions“, M. Doughty’s “Frog and Banjo“, Les Poppys’ “Tous Les Animaux du Monde“, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s “Little Boy Blue I“, Sufjan Stevens’ “Wolverine“, Tom McRae’s “Ghost of a Shark,” and Beck’s “Rosalie“.]