‘The world is such a nice thing!’: Matt Maltese, the songwriter for pop’s A

After getting dropped by a major label, the Leonard Cohen-influenced south Londoner kept going, and has now won fans in Rosalía, Sabrina Carpenter and more. But writing for the Bard is the best of all, he says

Three years back, Matt Maltese was in a casual co-writing session with some friends. Out of it came a song called Magnolias, a stripped back piano ballad about imagining his own funeral. “I didn’t think anything of it,” he says. “And then two years later, we heard some quite bizarre whispers that Rosalía had somehow heard it.” It was true: six months ago, Maltese was sent the Spanish pop star’s demo of the song. He tried not to get too excited, even when, a few weeks back, a blurred-out photo of a Rosalía album tracklisting appeared online. “On the WhatsApp group we were like: I thi