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 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 this is 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 will awaken 27 Dark perverse Fever Fever Dream, and we'll awaken 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 regular listeners of this program.

We've exceeded what I thought was possible for the inaugural year.

And I've found this project to be really creatively invigorating on many levels for me.

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