Hello there and welcome to Sooderjaker on songwriting.

Brian and Simon here and joining us for episode 316 is an acclaimed Oscar-winning Irish singer-songwriter,

known not only for his fine solo work, but also as frontman of influential rock band The Frames

and one half of folk duo the swell season.

The Dubliners brand new album, Don't Settle, Volume

1 Transmissions East, recorded live in Berlin in the spring of 2025, sees him revisit songs

written under all of those musical guises from a catalogue spanning well over three decades. We're

delighted to welcome the excellent Glenn Hansard to the show. Glenn was born in 1970, the second of four kids, and grew up in Ballymun on the outskirts of

Dublin. As a kid, he was exposed to a lot of traditional Irish music and rebel songs,

before the life-changing moments he was bestowed with a cassette copy of more Bob Dylan's

greatest hits by his girlfriend's brother. He spent the next couple of years shut away in his

bedroom, playing Dylan's songs on his uncle girlfriend's brother. He spent the next couple of years shut away in his

bedroom, playing Dylan's songs on his uncle's guitar, and drawing further inspiration from the

likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, James Taylor and Fairport Convention. A somewhat wayward youth,

he quit school at 13 at the encouragement of his headmaster who'd spotted Glenn's musical

potential. By 15, he was already a stalwart of the

Grafton Street busking scene, and by the dawn of the 90s, his by then undeniable talent had earned

him a recording deal with Ireland, at which point he assembled the frames. They released their debut

Another Love Song in 1991, the same year Glenn made his acting debut as guitarist Outspan Foster in Alan Parker's

classic 1991 musical comedy The Commitments. And that wouldn't be his last appearance on

the big screen. In 2007, he starred opposite his swell season partner Marquetta Ear Glover in

the indie drama once, written and directed by original frames bassist John Carney. A tender and impossibly charming

...