Hello and welcome to the working songwriter, the show where today's best songwriters come to Talk Shop.

I'm your host, Joe Pug.

Each episode, we host a distinguished guest, and we ask them to go deep on their inspiration,

on their process, on the general ups and downs of making a life in music.

So, whether you're a grizzled veteran, enmeshed, in in a decades long war of attrition lawsuit with a former

bandmate or else a scrappy upstart driving over to guitar center right now to finance that boutique

overdrive pedal that has been the sole barrier keeping you from stardom this is your your show, because ultimately it is what every writer

seeks most. An ironclad excuse to put off actually writing.

Hey everybody, it's our last show of the year. We did it. It's over. We may have lost David Bowie and Prince and Leon Russell and Sharon Jones and Leonard Cohen, but it's over and they'll have to wait until next year to take any more from us.

And maybe this whole last year, politics and all, will have just been some kind of deep, dark, perverse, fever dream.

And we'll awake in 2017 to find that all of our favorite songwriters are still with us

and that all of our elected officials believe in climate science.

That would be nice.

I've awoken from nightmares that were less menacing,

so that scenario might still be in play.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank everybody who's come out to a live show this year.

Live shows are how I keep the lights on,

and your support over the years has made that possible.

I had a wonderful holiday tour through Minnesota and Illinois and Indiana this last month,

which is turning into something of a tradition.

It was a great time.

I'm also really grateful to all of you who have become

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