Podcasts · Music

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

300 episodes

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.

More about the show

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 podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.

Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes page 2 of 6

  1. Madonna smoking, the first indie PM and have we just witnessed the nadir of pop?!

    · 1 h 02 min · Episode 931

    Tapping the barometer of news to see what’s blistering or stormy, which this week includes … … “The Man can’t bust our music!”: the crimes and misdemeanours of Clive Davis … the single biggest change in our lifetimes…

  2. Gary Numan’s reality check – ‘I’m essentially a guy who wears make-up for a living’

    · 39 min · Episode 930

    Seven hundred fans have contributed to ‘Gary Numan: A People’s History’, a lavishly published compendium of memories of discovering, hearing and watching him over the 50 years he’s been making music. As you might…

  3. David Gray’s priceless memories of lessons learned the hard way

    · 37 min · Episode 929

    David Gray went through the roof with his White Ladder album in 2000 and he’s toured and recorded ever since, ending this summer’s loop at Latitude. He talks to us here about the rigours of seeing bands when you lived…

  4. Why George Michael’s life is a movie plus Syd, Kirsty, Gorillaz & the worst album title ever

    · 58 min · Episode 928

    Digging deep in the icebox of news to choose the following lightly chilled refreshments … … 500 Miles, Wonderwall, Yes Sir I Can Boogie(?): what does it take to be a football anthem? … Gorillaz brilliant reinvention…

  5. Peter Frampton – ‘the Face of 1968’ looks back!

    · 44 min · Episode 927

    Peter Frampton, for goodness sake! Part of our lives at Word In Your Ear since we were teenagers. Played guitar on national telly when he was 14. Joined the Herd at 16 and Humble Pie two years later. Had the…

  6. Paul Simon’s Graceland and how the masterpiece was made

    · 33 min · Episode 927

    ‘Graceland’ was an almighty gamble for Paul Simon, a costly, high-risk departure from the music he’d been making and a complex international venture. And a game-changing, worldwide triumph. When Ashley Kahn taught a…

  7. Kate Mossman has strong feelings about rock stars past their prime

    · 49 min · Episode 925

    Kate’s an old pal of ours from Word magazine who writes scintillating columns and profiles for the New Statesman and Observer. We loved her book ‘Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters With Rock Royalty’ – just out in…

  8. Pop stars’ weddings and why Noel Gallagher’s right about World Cup music

    · 52 min · Episode 924

    Amid much parping of vuvuzelas, the week’s news stories sprint onto the pitch. And these make it to the quarter-finals … … Dua Lipa’s mega-wedding and its echoes of Mick & Bianca … when did publicity turn into…

  9. Dave Balfe remembers the Teardrops, Blur and a very big house in the country

    · 52 min · Episode 923

    Dave Balfe was a key player in late ‘70s Liverpool, joined Big In Japan and the Teardrop Explodes, co-founded Zoo Records and, later, Food who signed and launched Blur. It’s fascinating to hear how he’s adapted to…

  10. Star Ratings - do we love/hate/need them? Five-star debate here! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

    · 38 min · Episode 922

    Star Ratings are now ubiquitous and inescapable and it’s not just music, films and books. Everything we encounter tends to be rated which colours our judgement before we try it. Choice can be paralyzing but do we read…

  11. Brian Epstein & the Beatles - what he did and what he hid

    · 30 min · Episode 921

    Philip Norman has written books about the Beatles – and John, Paul and George - and now turns the spotlight on the man who launched them and the extreme personal and professional obstacles in the dramatic path of his…

  12. Are we nearing Beatles Overload? plus the rock star with the most children (41!)

    · 49 min · Episode 920

    When the pedalo of perusal cruised the lagoon of news this week, it paused to inspect the following ... … the particular magic of the late-night DJ … a Get Well card to dear Bob Harris … is Global Beatles Day a…

  13. The glorious story of Funk from James Brown to Off The Wall

    · 43 min · Episode 919

    Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that…

  14. Leo Sayer has met everyone – rock legends, sport superstars, future presidents …

    · 33 min · Episode 918

    Leo Sayer burst onto national telly in 1973 dressed as a Pierrot with the Show Must Go On launching a 50-year career in colourful company – songwriters, boxing legends, swindling managers, scurrilous socialites – and…

  15. Songs about sweltering heat, Willie Nelson’s braids and is vinyl now ‘luxury goods’?

    · 48 min · Episode 917

    Chasing the shade and slapping the Sunscreen on this week’s overheated news, we pour a tinkling drink and reflect upon the following … … British people in hot weath-ah! … when rock stars you haven’t seen for 50 years…

  16. How Daniel Lanois made those adventurous records with Dylan, U2 and Willie Nelson

    · 38 min · Episode 916

    Daniel Lanois built a studio in his basement in Quebec and began producing local acts when a teenager. Through work with Brian Eno, he went on to record U2, Bob Dylan, Arcade Fire, Emmylou Harris and scores of others…

  17. Siouxsie, Nico, Cocteaus, Shangri-Las, Bobbie Gentry … a celebration of the sound of Goth!

    · 31 min · Episode 915

    Cathi Unsworth was a teenage Goth, enthralled as much by Joy Division and the Banshees as by the Brontës, Bram Stoker and Aubrey Beardsley. We loved her book ‘Season of the Witch’ and she’s since put together a…

  18. Blondie and Clem Burke remembered by devoted pal Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s

    · 34 min · Episode 914

    Clem Burke joined Blondie in 1975. He started writing his memoir 20 years ago and just managed to finish it before he died in 2025, encouraged and assisted by his old friend Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s, “a chance to…

  19. Nick Lowe’s miracle payday, Rock feuds and a giant inflatable Jarvis

    · 51 min · Episode 913

    Panning for gold in the murky waters of this week’s news, we found the following … … is Sabrina Carpenter’s aunt the voice of Bart Simpson? … is punk now just a small room in the giant apartment block of Goth? … why…

  20. The Damned at 50 and the memories (and regrets) of Rat Scabies

    · 36 min · Episode 912

    The Damned are – yes! - 50 years old with three of the originals still onboard. And just starting a world tour. In this immensely funny and touching podcast, Rat Scabies (who’s smoking!) points up the repercussions of…

  21. Shoegaze, slackers, ‘noise chasms’ and the 10-year reinvention of rock

    · 45 min · Episode 911

    A whole new age of psychedelia kicked off in the mid-‘80s, of dream-weavers and glorious underachievers, a complete rejection of the standard rock approach to stagecraft, sound and self-promotion. Simon Reynolds was at…

  22. Famous rock locations, His & Hers records and weird things thrown onstage

    · 54 min · Episode 910

    This week’s news gets a thorough shake-down to see what falls out of its pockets. Which includes … … cupcakes, mobiles, rubber ducks, a dead swan: weird things thown at rock stars … “polka-dotted micro-tonal…

  23. Brian Eno’s restless creative adventures with Roxy, Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads

    · 31 min · Episode 909

    For nearly 60 years, Brian Eno has been a “proud non-musician” who changed the way people thought and sounded while inventing whole new ways of recording. We loved reading the updated edition of ‘On Some Faraway Beach’…

  24. The Who, Floyd, Led Zep and the great college circuit that launched 1,000 bands

    · 50 min · Episode 908

    Cheap tickets, warm beer, draughty halls and refectories, a whole new cobbled-together rock circuit was born in the ‘60s for an audience who watched and listened intently. Which allowed the music to take a different…

  25. Paul Simon, Bad Bunny, how songwriting changed & the scourge of Blue Dot Fever!

    · 50 min · Episode 907

    It’s polling day for this week’s news and these are the stories that got our vote … ... Pussycat Dolls, Meghan Trainor and how ‘Blue Dot Fever’ is wrecking ticket sales … how can you judge a songwriter with eight…

  26. Pleasure Gardens, cabaret, nightclubs, rave & 350 years of the Big Night Out

    · 30 min · Episode 906

    Mass commercial nightlife began in a Japanese Pleasure Garden in 1657 and it’s blossomed ever since – via Victorian Vauxhall, cabaret Paris, jazz-driven New Orleans, flappers, speakeasies, moonshine, Studio 54 and the…

  27. Andy Earl’s memories of photographing Prince, Madonna and Johnny Cash

    · 34 min · Episode 905

    Andy Earl helped create the new dawn of colour photography in the ‘80s pop video age and went on to shoot a series of unforgettable portraits, album sleeves and magazine covers, many featuring in his new exhibition in…

  28. Talk Talk, a deep-dive tale of mystery and imagination

    · 45 min · Episode 904

    Talk Talk made just five albums, all written and recorded unconventionally and no-one’s entirely sure how they did it. And in the last two decades of his life Mark Hollis released only 92 seconds of music. Lifelong…

  29. The Clash, the Cramps and Penny Kiley’s teenage punk diaries

    · 29 min · Episode 903

    Penny Kiley moved to Liverpool in 1976, ran into punk rock and “became the person I’d never been allowed to be”, as vividly remembered in her memoir, Atypical Girl. It’s a moment of liberation mapped out by records,…

  30. Van Morrison’s agent writes crime fiction as the music business sleeps

    · 44 min · Episode 902

    In the 70s Paul Charles wrote lyrics for an Irish prog band. Now he writes mystery novels. Inbetween he’s been agent for Tom Waits, Nick Lowe, Van Morrison, Hothouse Flowers and many others and has forgotten more about…

  31. Can the Michael movie reboot Jacko? & how social media changed festivals

    · 1 h 03 min · Episode 901

    This week’s news stories charge out onto the pitch but which are heading for promotion? In the running at the final whistle … … “a ghoulish, soulless cash-grab”: the multiple disasters in the making of the Michael…

  32. Andy Kershaw & Dylan’s jar of jam plus the things people do to get gigs

    · 54 min · Episode 900

    Be glad for the pod has no ending! Now in our 20th year and, this week, ruminating fondly on the following … … the “underhand” selling of Geese … Morrissey’s absurd whinge about the Salford Lads Club photo … Jay…

  33. The story of Wild Thing and whatever happened to World Cup songs?

    · 55 min · Episode 899

    Take your protein pills and put your helmet on as we voyage to the far side this week to take a picture of … … the Kanye West & Wireless ding-dong … Springsteen with Tom Morello, Pet Shop Boys with Johnny Marr: the…

  34. No Sex Pistols in Manchester? ‘No Smiths, Nirvana, indie rock.’ Discuss!

    · 38 min · Episode 898

    Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley read a review of the Sex Pistols in February 1976, borrowed a car, drove to London, asked the NME where they’d find the band and were told ‘try a sex shop in the King’s Road’. The events…

  35. The Keith Moon story is a movie in waiting, both a comedy and a tragedy

    · 47 min · Episode 897

    The life of Keith Moon can be seen as Animal from the Muppets or as a dark, psychological odyssey. And the two co-exist in Tony Fletcher’s magnificent ‘Dear Boy’, first published in 1998, never out of print and now…

  36. The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 896

    Dominic Mohan saw Britpop on the inside from the showbiz desk of the Sun in the days when it sold 4.5m copies, a series of heated memories recorded in ‘1996: My Backstage Pass to the Wildest Year of Britain’s Wildest…

  37. Who hasn’t had ‘work done’, how to spot AI and the stupidest thing we ever did

    · 49 min · Episode 895

    A seasonal egg-hunt in the rock and roll backyard finds the following conversational confectionary … .. Wild Bill Hickok? Valentino? Bob Dylan’s bizarre new media manoeuvre … Liza Minnelli, Peter Sellers, Harrison…

  38. How Tony Visconti keeps the Bowie flag flying

    · 35 min · Episode 894

    Tony Visconti left Brooklyn for London in 1967, began working with the Move and Marc Bolan and formed a life-long friendship with the teenage David Bowie, playing on his first two albums and producing 10 of ones that…

  39. Matt Johnson & the unique story of The The plus George Michael and the sunbed

    · 39 min · Episode 893

    Matt Johnson’s life story has been mapped out as one long Q&A conversation from meetings with old friend, fan and BFI director Jason Wood. ‘Cognitive Dissident’ traces his trajectory from the East End to Soho to the…

  40. At home with Nick Drake, Sandy Denny & John Martyn in the golden year of 1970

    · 28 min · Episode 892

    When he was 19, New Yorker Brian Cullman covered the London music scene for Crawdaddy, landing at the birth of folk-rock and the singer-songwriter boom and watching its leading lights from unimaginably close quarters -…

  41. The Jarrett movie, Macca’s secret & when did standing at gigs start?

    · 45 min · Episode 891

    Whooping, whistling, punching the air, standing on the arm-rests and generally adding our voice to the sound of the crowd this week involves … … the creepy way Google eavesdrops our conversations … the cleverly…

  42. The Clash story mapped by the places they lived, played, evolved … and shot pigeons

    · 39 min · Episode 890

    Paul Gorman, author and curator, has put together fascinating maps of the London haunts of Bowie and the Stones and just published one about the Clash built around key locations in the network that formed them and…

  43. Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness

    · 57 min · Episode 889

    A milky tea, a jam sponge and this week’s news served on a tin tray with a steam train painted on it points our very English conversation towards the following … … what connects the Monkees and a British Prime…

  44. Neil Tennant revisits songs he’s written since the age of nine

    · 55 min · Episode 888

    Neil Tennant co-wrote a musical at Primary School and soon decided that “learning other people’s songs was hard work compared with making up your own”. He’s chosen some from the Pet Shop Boys’ 40-year catalogue, hits…

  45. Steve Nieve looks back at Costello, Stiff tours and the magical sound of pianos

    · 43 min · Episode 887

    At the age of four, Steve Nieve drew pictures of piano keys and pretended to play them. He joined Elvis Costello & the Attractions when he was 19, the start of a life that involves having to find a flight case for a…

  46. Scores McCartney still wants to settle, Country Joe and the rise of ‘destination gigs’

    · 1 h 03 min · Episode 886

    Watering the scented hedgerows of news to see if any green shoots appear. And they do, in the form of … … the most effective protest song ever written … the commendable box-ticking life of Country Joe McDonald … the…

  47. Shaun & Bez and other Odd Couples we love

    · 50 min · Episode 885

    Pointing the scanner of inquiry at the baggage carousel of news to see what gets the lights flashing, which this week includes … … we know what’s making Morrissey miserable … bands that can get a whole stadium…

  48. The Kinks’ chaotic ascent mapped out day-by-day is ‘a nirvana for any fan’

    · 41 min · Episode 884

    A gorgeous and lavish new publication tells the story of the Kinks in the ‘60s via the key events in their unsteady trajectory plus concert bills, letters and ephemera assembled by Andrew Sandoval, the kind of…

  49. How A Hard Day’s Night ripped up the pop movie rulebook

    · 44 min · Episode 883

    Author and broadcaster Samira Ahmed used to watch A Hard Day’s Night once a week and she’s just written an enthralling account of the shoot and its impact for the BFI’s Classic Films series. A movie, she points out,…

  50. Bob Dylan and the Beatles, a tale of envy, affection and intense rivalry

    · 36 min · Episode 882

    Bob Dylan and the Beatles watched each other closely. Jim Windolf is fascinated by the parallels in their stories, the obvious moments they influenced each other and the unconcealable tensions at the times they met,…

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