And the Welcome everyone to the final soda jaker on songwriting of 2018. This is Brian here with Simon and

joining us to round off an incredible 12 months for the podcast is fittingly

one of the most respected and influential songwriters in modern music.

He's a Grammy winner and a member of both the songwriters and rock and roll halls of fame

and recently released his 30th studio album and First in Five Years, the very fine look now.

We are over the moon to welcome to the show,

the exceptional Elvis Costello.

It's been very much a banner year for the podcast,

and this just puts the button on it as far as we're concerned.

Few can lay claim to having had as rich, distinguished and eclectic career as our

guest. He made his name during the punk and New Wave era of the late 70s of

course but since then he's genre hopped like it's nobody's business

hasn't he? He sure has and then there's the veritable laundry list of

impressive collaborators we're talking about the likes of Bert Bakarach Paul Paul McCartney, Alan Tucson, Roy Orbison, Lucinda Williams, Debbie

Harry, Johnny Cash, Diana Croyall, T-bone Burnett, Brian Eno, The Roots and Roseanne Cash to name just a few.

We met with Elvis back in mid-October at the Hopestry Hotel in our hometown of Liverpool,

a city with which she retains a very strong bond, and it was just a few days after the release of

Lucknow, which made the

Bill Bud top 10 incidentally and I think is also his biggest selling album

so far this century. Fantastic. It was yet another bucketless moment for us to

meet him and he was on extremely good form as you'll hear in just a few minutes.

Our guest was born Declanmanis in Paddington, London in 1954.

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