Word In Your Ear

John Lydon is among us in 2025 - with Public Image in May and on his Spoken Word tour in September. Entertainment is guaranteed, as it is in this podcast with Mark where he considers … Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and the “sadness in all comedians”, stage fright, the day his dad threw him out of the house, why PiL is like opera, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, the “crippled emotions” of yo...

In which we feed the week’s events through our heat-seeking Fun-Filter®️ to see what makes the bell ring. Which includes …   … Richard Ashcroft in the new John Lewis Christmas ad.   … U2 v Coldplay, the Beatles v Pink Floyd – rock bands and the “diploma divide”.   … why can we still recite entire song lyrics we learnt when teenagers but can’t remember the shopping list we wrote this...

He’s written some of the darkest entries in the American songbook but became world famous with a sunny celebration of friendship on the soundtrack of “Toy Story”. Inbetween can be found a staggering range of songs dealing with everything from short people to Vladimir Putin, from performing bears to the Louisiana Flood., from ELO to the Great Nations Of Europe, all of which show up in this authorit...

After many years of invisibility, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones is out, about and on tour again and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves …   … what time he goes to bed.   … “he writes better lyrics than Elvis Costello and is prettier than Billy Idol”: why Nick Kent’s review was an insult.   … seeing the Small Faces in 1966, the Floyd with Syd...

Things this week that sent the needle into the red included …   … the last dance craze the whole world noticed.   ... “Rock stars used to be anti-establishment. Now they ARE the establishment.”   … artworks, flags, bespoke I-Ching Coins … would YOU pay £1,350 for a box set?   … why Quincy Jones made records like a movie director.   ... how Dylan’s Biograph and Springsteen’...

The most streamed Beatles song – 700 million plays more than any other – is not by Lennon/McCartney but George who, as author Seth Rogovoy points out, is still widely considered “an economy-class Beatle” though his contributions were central to the success of their records. Seth’s new book ‘Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison’ sets out to right this monstrous wrong! As does this c...

Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds are about to set out on their 35th Anniversary Greatest Hits Tour – aka “beery parties”. He talks to us here about the first bands he ever saw and played in, which involves …   … memories of the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun.   … the secret of seeming enigmatic: “Never finish your sentences …”   … how Three Lions brought a who...

Our crack pair of inquisitors tackle the week’s events and sift out the good, the bad and the riveting, which includes …   … whatever happened to savage reviews?   … “For God’s sake, keep the robots out of music!”: the 50th birthday of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn.   … a Naked Nick Cave Plush Doll (£24) and some Jonny Greenwood olive oil.   … strange tales about the making of Disraeli...

Elliot Mintz, then a West Coast radio presenter, met the Lennons in 1971, the start of a close, unique and extraordinary friendship and hours of late-night phone calls. And he’s finally written a book about it, We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me, which records the isolated, complicated life they led imprisoned by their celebrity, at times joyous and outlandish, at others bleak and uncomfortably...

Brushing aside the cobweb spray and luminous flashing skulls, we ring rock and roll’s doorbell in pursuit of both tricks and treats. Among which you’ll find …   … the gothification of entertainment … Harry Potter, Creedence Clearwater and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.   … Donald Trump dancing to Jeff Buckley.    … why Phil Lesh was the heart and soul of the Grateful Dead....

Mark King and Level 42 have just announced 2025 tour dates and he talks to us here about …   … the value of what you learn in covers bands from being ignored.   … why being thrown out of home for being thrown out of school was the best thing that ever happened to him.   … Level 42’s first gig, kicked off after four songs.   … Chile, Turkey and other new markets on the “flatter...

This is an extraordinary story on many levels – about the power and sanctuary of music, about what it took for bands to get noticed in the ‘70s, about how a teenager obsessed with King Crimson eventually joined the band and about the struggles of “a rabid Henry Cow fan trying to get on Top of the Pops”. Jakko Jakszyk is a fabulous storyteller, both in his memoir ‘Who’s the Boy With The Lovely Hair...

  Applying our patent wheat-chaff separator to recent rock and roll events, we filter out the following …   … “They’ve got the guns but we got the numbers”: whatever happened to political songs?   … the life of Libby Titus and the afterlife of Love Has No Pride.   … when gigs become stalking with a musical component.   … how Taylor Swift Tickets became the new currency. &n...

You’ll know Miranda Sawyer from the Observer and the radio and, possibly, from her days at Smash Hits and Select magazines that form the foundation of her new book, Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs, a time spent watching, interviewing and hanging out with the collection of misfits and outsiders fast becoming the last great musical movement this country ever saw. This pans in on the...

Our record-breaking partnership faces a fresh set of spin bowlers on the rock and roll pitch but rifles a few shots over the pavilion roof, among them …   … the time Elvis let his daughter ride her pony through the house.   … when Moon Zappa (10) found naked hippies making candles in the garden.   … “Can you get that? It might be someone important.” The Queen when her mobile rang. &...

Hugh Cornwell is preparing for his “All The Fun Of The Fair” tour which begins in November and here he talks to David Hepworth about: ….why rehearsals are best in bursts ….why he no longer carries keyboards ….the special magic of going to see Chuck Berry with Richard Thompson ….how the two of them have recorded “Tobacco Road” for an Alzheimers benefit record …being at the Marquee when Clapton, Bec...

We aimed the airgun of enquiry at this week’s rock and roll side-stall and dislodged the following coconuts …     … sports star, Rhodes scholar, bohemian: why Kris Kristofferson was a whole new breed of American hero.     … the letter his parents wrote disowning him.   … how he invented the crossover hit.   … echoes of his life in Five Easy Pieces.   …...

Christine McVie - one of only two British girl rock musicians in the ‘60s and part of the greatest pop soap opera of all time. Neither in the backline or the frontline but occupying a unique middle ground. Packed it in for 16 years then returned to the fold. Lesley-Ann Jones’ fresh and emotional memoir Songbird follows “the trajectory of a male rock star played by a woman”, the home she was keen t...

Nick Heyward was one of our favourite cover stars when we were at Smash Hits in the ‘80s, the days when hardcore Haircut One Hundred fans turned out in Fair Isle sweaters and Sou’Westers. He now lives mostly in Florida, he’s made nine solo albums – one magnificently titled Open Sesame Seed - and he’s toured again with his old band after ten years’ painful separation. Touring the UK in October, he...

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He’s 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he...

Ian Hunter – an image so familiar you’d recognise his silhouette - now lives in Connecticut and he’s just released expanded versions of two of his best-selling solo albums, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and Short Back N' Sides. He’s 85, born before any of the Beatles. We talk to him here about life growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s when your father’s a copper and “music wasn’t allowed in t...

As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness draws in, we poke the embers of this week’s rock and roll bonfire and rake out the following chestnuts …   … Maggie Smith on ‘70s chat shows.   … when Radiohead meets Shakespeare.   … the strange, circuitous and downright disgraceful launch of Francis Ford Coppola’s majestically bonkers Megalopolis.   … Chappell Roan and Sabrina Ca...

Simon Raymonde’s affecting and beautifully written memoir ‘In One Ear’ records life in the ‘60s growing up with a father who wrote and arranged for Dusty Springfield, Helen Shapiro and the Walker Brothers, the impossibly shy promotional activities of the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil and the struggles and eventual jackpot of the Bella Union record label he founded. He’s so perceptive, observa...

Abba’s biographer Jan Gradvall met and interviewed Abba many times and builds a fresh picture of their internal chemistry in his new book Melancholy Undercover. Highlights of this illuminating pod include …   … how Sweden rejected their early hits for not being sufficiently “socialist”.   …. the discomfiting early life of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.   … what Max Martin and Denniz Pop though...

A free-form spontaneous jam this week - the Dark Star of podcasts – which navigates the outer reaches of the rock and roll stratosphere by way of the following …   … was Michael Stipe’s father a military helicopter pilot in Korea?   … our fantasy Odd Couple tragi-comedy: Morrissey and Marr in a thin-skinned middle-aged flat share.     … how the Golden Egg launched Roxy Mus...