The Playlist: The Compromise

From the budget bill to a new university in South Texas, a number of big agreements were reached in the Capitol this week. Fittingly, our playlist inspired by this week's Texas news opens with The Format's "The Compromise."

The easiest way to enjoy the playlist is to download Spotify, which is a free program. But even without it, you can still follow along. Here are this week's other selections:

In honor of a dramatic threat by state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, to kill all the Senate bills on the local calendar in the House on Friday, we added one of our favorite songs from the Kill Bill soundtrack: Tomoyasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity."

Steve Hotze, a major Republican campaign donor who recently announced he was suing the federal government over the Affordable Care Act, released two songs on the subject. He made the songs using a technology that B.o.B. mocks in his spoof song, "Auto Tune." (If you're not familiar with auto-tune, the Trib's Emily Ramshaw described it as "a digitized, techno style.")

This week saw the release of an email from Gov. Rick Perry to several of the embattled University of Texas System regents  in which he told them he knew they "get tired of being hammered by charlatans and peacocks." So we added "Peacocks" by The Mountain Goats.

State Rep. Naomi Gonzalez, D-El Paso, announced that she intends to seek another term in the Texas House, despite her pending drunk driving case, inspiring the selection of Teddy Thompson's "Take Me Back Again." With a group of bills that would dramatically alter the way beer is sold and consumed in Texas winning tentative approval in the House, we have Tom T. Hall's "I Like Beer."

As a nod to Jay Root's story about efforts by U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, and Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, to bring bipartisanship to the Texas delegation, we included Aerosmith's version of  "Come Together." Ross Ramsey's column about a legislative session that has featured more civility than drama made us think of Joe Cocker's "Civilized Man."

The Tribune announced reporter Julián Aguilar will be heading west to open up our new border bureau. We pay tribute to him with "El Paso" by Marty Robbins.

We wrap up our playlist with a nod to a bill bound for the governor's desk that would allow teachers and other public school staff to use holiday greetings like "Merry Christmas” and "Happy Hanukkah." Naturally we went with the Robert Earl Keen classic "Merry Christmas from the Family."

Enjoy!