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PODCAST

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those

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All Episodes

41:56

The Smiths’ Mike Joyce on triumph, gladioli &...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/11/02

Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …… the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even Morrissey, saw it coming”… the first Smiths rehearsal and impressions of

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47:11

Records that sound unique and why all bands need a...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/26

Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a fortune… Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and the art of being the Other One in a pop duo… Bohemian Rhapsody, O Superman, I Feel Fine: records that sounded like nothing before them… what links the Prodigy, Wet Leg, Daft Punk and Donna Summer?… how all bands need a bad patch to make you appreciate the good ones… “the concept album is a good servant but a bad master”… Expensive =

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34:38

Billy Bragg – 40 years, 2,700 gigs and what he learnt...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/22

‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packed with old snapshots, concert bills, reviews and ephemera. It’s very good indeed. He looks back here with us at …… meeting Taylor Swift – “and we both knew who the other was!”… a total of 2,700 gigs – “not counting prisons, In-Stores, Port-A-Stacks and picket lines”… old blokes trying to take selfies… finding old diaries in his archives and sensing how

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40:41

Mark Kermode tells us stories about music in movies

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/21

The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by the marriage of movie and soundtrack since Dougal and the Blue Cat (aged 6) and, with Jenny Nelson, has just published ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’. We talk to him here about…… Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, Edgar Wright: the new generation “who grew up with a headful of not just music, but records”… how John Williams is “the

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48:30

How many bands can you name every member of?

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/19

This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions… the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener”…. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life”… bands whose story means more than their music… Nick Drake, Hendrix, Portishead, Nirvana: why three albums is the perfect back catalogue… when

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36:59

The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/17

The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too …… when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over at 21”… seeing the Beatles at Luton Odeon and the Stones at Studio 51

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39:42

Led Zeppelin’s fight for attention and how they...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/14

This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at ….… the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967… the way Page has fudged early details of his and the band’s career… why

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54:06

Stones, Blondie, Iggy and songs that make a movie &...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/13

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …… will rock bands get offered the Saudi money?… “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030”… Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted… the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats… “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads”… did Easy Rider invent the music video?… Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous –

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37:52

Ringo and why the Beatles wouldn’t have worked...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/10

The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about ….… how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming... what you learn re-watching him in Peter Jackson’s Get Back… why Ringo gave them

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34:42

The three London kids who invented rock style

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/30

Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip, the Kings Road store that was a magnet for rock’s glitterati in the late 60s.•⁠⁠Sheila Cohen, the first queen of cool; she invented the whole idea of vintage•⁠⁠Nigel Waymouth, who never went to art school but changed the face of London with his posters•⁠⁠John Pearse, who could make a jacket out of anything - and did•⁠⁠The days of aatering to the 200

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48:40

How pioneer tape-rat Roger Armstrong found vintage...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/23

Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a believer that you could license rare R&B, soul and rockabilly classics while cutting new records with rising stars (Shane MacGowan, Kirsty MacColl and Joe Strummer among them). He then co-founded Ace Records and talks to us here about the thrill of trawling through American label vaults, locating vintage tracks and finding them a whole new

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47:59

Why Van and Fairport make the perfect send-off,...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/22

On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet …… Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other perfect songs for a last farewell… the day we joined the world’s best band… Robert Redford’s blinding handsomeness and the greatest moment – all three seconds of it – in Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid… best-looking rock stars… were the Shadows really a UK Eurovision entry?… “very special guests” and the new age of the stadium rock “bring-on”… how John Prine and

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39:25

John Prine, Elvis Costello and a jukebox on fire

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/18

Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves:•⁠⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”.•⁠⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs.•⁠⁠remembering

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36:59

Peter Hammill on Bowie, other superfans & 47 albums...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/12

Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about …… supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’… meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life… Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off

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45:09

Talking Heads, where they came from and where they...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/10

Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition and the springboard of the New York scene of the late ‘70s (he was a regular at CBGB). Along with …... the romanticised image of CBGB and the reality… their black music roots: “the same instrumentation as Booker T & the MGs”… the influence of the Modern Lovers: “Jonathan Richman and Byrne were both oddballs, appealing but peculiar”… how the

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31:44

Freddie Mercury has a daughter’ – and Lesley-Ann...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/10

Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘Love, Freddie’ by his highly respected biographer Lesley-Ann Jones which details a four-year, detailed exchange with his daughter ‘B’, now 48, and the contents of the 17 notebooks he gave her before he died in 1991. We talk to Lesley-Ann here about this gripping new tilt on his story which covers …… the 41-page document B sent her in 2021 and how the

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52:37

Oasis in 2026, the Troggs and what Morrissey’s only...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/08

All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket …… is Morrissey hacked off, broke or just desperate for attention?… are stadium gigs the new tourism?… bucket hats, Man City, lads culture … how did America finally ‘get’ Oasis?… singles that weren’t on albums… are we sated by an overabundance of music?… how Gary Numan got a record deal… why Gene Loves Jezebel are the new Sam & Dave!… the new age of the

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36:53

‘Hey Joe’, its miracle birth & why violent songs are...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/03

Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schneider unravels its twisted genesis in ‘That Gun In Your Hand’, and talks to us here about the miracles that allowed it to happen and the sad fate of Billy Roberts, the man who claimed he wrote it. Along with ……“all pop records are built on the back of other pop records”… the allure of violent songs: “we get our kicks from real-life murder”… the bit-part

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41:17

Why reviews lost their sting - and what matters more,...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/09/01

Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them ……. Sting v Summers & Copeland over Every Breath You Take, the goose that laid the golden egg… what John Lennon would have thought about the ‘cancelled’ track on Some Time In New York City… when did “critically acclaimed” come to mean unpopular?… the knock-about days when a critic was “a jerk, a crank and a spoilsport”… Jonny Greenwood’s dad was a bomb disposal expert? Pete Doherty’s mum was a

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36:35

Singers’ vast egos explained and what’s the real...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/08/24

A tub-thumping, snare-cracking, cymbal-simmering, two-way backbeat to this week’s rock and roll news, the on-beats including …… “Trauma-bonding?” Why being ‘a fan’ is like a love affair… Ian Brown, Morrissey, Siouxsie, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison … why singers who don’t play an instrument are a different species… the stadium-rock drummer transfer window… Sigourney Weaver at Shea Stadium in ’65… singers who don’t sound like their personalities… what can a singer-songwriter write about if they get

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109 results

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