This is an I-Heart podcast.

Years ago, and this is going to date me, my best friend Bruce and I used to make

mixtapes for each other,

actually mixed CDs. We used to spend enormous amounts of time picking the songs,

and then an even more enormous amount of time on the art for the CD box. My mixes were

always named after popes for reasons I cannot remember, like Pope Pius X-12th, with a big photocopied picture of him

in some ermine robe. Anyway, the point of the mixes, and I think this is true of everyone who grew

up in the mix era, was to find songs that you knew about and liked, and that you believed

that your best friend didn't know about and would like,

which, if you're talking about someone with whom you've been sharing music your whole life,

is a pretty narrow window.

Anyway, Bruce put the acoustic re-release of Elvis Costello's Deporty on a special mix.

I think it was for one of my birthdays in my roaring 20s.

I just remember thinking two things as I listened to that song over and over again. First, I knew the first version and hated it. And this

was the same song, sung by the same artist, and now in this form, it was magical. How did that work?

The second thing, I remember thinking, is this is why God invented best friends.

I still think that, by the way.

Here we go, the first in our musical encore, hallelujah.

In 1984, Elvis Costello released his ninth album goodbye cruel world i bought it the week it came out

because i bought every elvis costello album back then the week it came out there's a theory in psychology

the music you listen to at ages 19 and 20 is the music that imprints itself most deeply

on your consciousness.

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