Crossword Genius

Songsmith, essentially mischievous and egocentric (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

selfish

'egocentric' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'songsmith essentially mischievous' is the wordplay.
'essentially' means to look at the middle letters.
'mischievous' becomes 'elfish' ('elfish' can be a synonym of 'mischievous').
The centre of 'songsmith' is 's'.
's'+'elfish'='SELFISH'

'and' is the link.

(Other definitions for selfish that I've seen before include "inconsiderate" , "Concerned chiefly with one's own interests" , "without consideration" , "Egocentric - greedy" , "Concerned only with oneself" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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