Elvis Is King: In Advance of His New Nashville-Recorded Album National Ransom, Elvis Costello Looks Back on His Three-Decade Love Affair With Music City [On This Week's Cover]

Elvis Costello has long spoken to me with his music. A few week's back, he spoke to me with his phone. Pinching yourself for 45 minutes hurts. But that's exactly what I has doing while getting to interview him. Not only do I have the scars to prove it, I have some nifty-ass evidence. In addition to featuring a pretty rad illustration of King Costello — courtesy of one

—

is a Q&A with the bespectacled rock legend in which he talks of his longtime love of Nashville, recounts recording Almost Blue with Billy Sherrill, shares a few awesome anecdotes, musings on music and songwriting, and discusses his forthcoming LP, National Ransom. You know,

. The one that comes out next Tuesday.

to read the story and find that — in case you didn't already know — Elvis Costello is no imposter.

Actually, we ended up just talking about Springsteen the whole time. Check out this excerpt:

... It was just before Darkness on the Edge of Town came out, but I don't think his following was so solid in Nashville. I remember being in the audience thinking, "He's having to put these songs over." It wasn't like [when] I saw him just a little while later in New Jersey, and it was a rabid audience that knew every word of every song. In Nashville, there were definitely people who were seeing him for the first time.

His words, not mine.