Word In Your Ear

… in which we remember the luminous music and diabolical life of the last of the old rock and roll guard standing. And this includes … the weird old America he came from (backwoods country, religious sects with their transporting songs), the career-cancelling British tour in 1958, the electrifying Live at The Star Club album, the Steve Allen Show breakthrough and the Seven Wives of Jerry Lee Lewis. Much to applaud, much to deplore. … and some of his deathless lyrics eg ‘39 And Holding’ – ‘Dim lights hide the mileage line/ Clairol hides the grey/ And he won't mention anything to give his old age away’. Stevie Wonder’s ‘Talking Book’ was released 50 years ago this week. How did it change the landscape of electronic music forever? Jockstrap, First Aid Kit, Dry Cleaning, Small Feet, Thermos and Diarrhea Planet. One of these is not a real band. But which? The new ‘Revolver’ remix. A technological masterpiece but don’t we prefer music to sound the way we first heard it on the equipment at the time?   The Giles Fraser parlour game. You have to go back to school and can appoint all the staff yourself but they have to be from the music world. Who’s headmistress (Dolly Parton? Annie Lennox?). Head of Art (Ferry? Eno?). Head of English (Richard Thompson?). Head of Science (Tom Dolby?). Matron (Clare Grogan? Lulu?). Plus birthday guests Giles Fraser and Ian Martin and new patrons recast as TV presenters. Jerry Lee Lewis on the Steve Allen Show in 1957: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7SBF-35EsSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sheila’s portraits of ‘80s musicians and the club circuit filled the pages of magazines like the Face and Smash Hits at the time and now feature in her book ‘80s: Sound And Vision’. You’ll know a few from album sleeves too. She talks here about some favourites – Nick Logan in the Face office, Bryan Ferry, Bowie with Marc Bolan, Martin Fry in the famous gold lamé suit, Siouxsie in ‘Japanese chic’, Steve Strange and the day Frankie Goes To Hollywood turned up dressed as cowboys and swinging a lasso. The description of Leigh Bowery bursting out of a cab, festooned with piercings and painted blue, is worth the price of admission alone.  ‘80s: Sound and Vision’ by Sheila Rock …https://www.amazon.co.uk/80s-Sound-Vision-Nilgin-Yusuf/dp/0711278776Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the crosshairs this week … Sampha, Skepta? Mercury Prize winner or Italian sports-shoe brand? Was Revolver really the Beatles’ most “consequential” album? James Corden v Balthazar: fame in the age of social media. Liz Truss, Steven Gerrard, Bruce Springsteen and knowing “what it’s like to have failed with the whole world looking on”. Danny Baker’s selling 12,000 records: unsettling life-stage moments when you put your foot on the ball and look around the pitch. The joy of old books and finding pencil marks in the margin by other readers. Noel Coward in ‘In Which We Serve’ and were the Mountbattens “the orginal hot couple”? … and Simon Sebag Montefiore’s brilliant 213-song playlist of songs to accompany his new book “The World: A Family History” …https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0bXOS1k3hGKmfQCmbg21W4?si=CbdtROxeQie0rZyg_KA-SQ&nd=1Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon to receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, ad-free, and with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Craig was on the pod last year talking about his glorious Beatles book ‘One Two Three Four’ and he’s just published a collection of his writing called ‘Haywire: the Best of Craig Brown’ – Private Eye diaries, columns, reviews, essays and other assorted comic gems. It’s very good indeed. “Satirists,” he reminds you, “are on the side of things going wrong.” Here are just a few of the topics that stumble into view in this very funny and illuminating ramble – John Stonehouse, the strange life of Arthur Lowe, “all entertainers are disturbed”, Bruce Springsteen as dictatorial bandleader, Liz Truss’s speech patterns, meeting people he’s lampooned in print, Kenneth Williams, Bruce Robinson’s preposterous Jack the Ripper book and how Lieutenant Pigeon is anagram (but of what?). Buy ‘Haywire: the Best Of Craig Brown’ and his other wonderful books here … https://www.amazon.co.uk/Craig-Brown/e/B001HCVLIU%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of them is Sympathy For The Devil. The Stranglers are in the Top Five too, as are the Strawbs. The best-selling historian and documentary-maker has spent the last three years working on his monumental, all-encompassing new book, ‘The World: A Family History’, much of it hammered out to the sound of very loud music. And he’s made a playlist to accompany it that connects with this vast human drama – Billie Holiday, Billy Bragg, Ava Max and Elvis Costello all in the mix. He talks here about songwriters who are obsessed with history (Mick Jagger, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Elton John), global events immortalised in song (“he got an ice pick that made his ears burn”) and about hangmen and papists, murderous 15th Century Moroccan pirate-queens, the “underrated” Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and the mystery of “the great Elmyra”. It’s well worth a listen. And do send suggestions for any other great pop songs about history he could include.  Simon’s playlist for ‘The World’ …https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0bXOS1k3hGKmfQCmbg21W4?si=CbdtROxeQie0rZyg_KA-SQ&nd=1 Order ‘The World’ here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Simon-Sebag-Montefiore/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ASimon+Sebag+Montefiore http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/ @simonmontefioreSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we waspishly suggest the odd nip and tuck is now standard practice - and name a few obvious suspects. And alight upon … … Nick Hornby’s new book and the connections he’s found between Dickens and Prince.   … support acts we’ve seen who became household names. … David’s dinner with Jess Phillips MP and what happened the day JK Rowling got a tour of the House of Commons. … the former hospital orderly who walked into Muscle Shoals studios and had a worldwide hit with his first recording. … the real identities of S. Flavius Mercurius and Bijou Drains. … the all-round wonderfulness of the London Palladium. … extracts from Bob Dylan’s new book and some of the songs he’ll be exploring.… and a query from birthday guest Cathal Chu. Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon to receive every future Word Podcast early, ad-free and with full visuals... alongside a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things picked up by the ankles this week and given a light shaking to see what falls out of their pockets … … why King Crimson is like no other band on God’s green earth. ... a sweet story about a Let It Rock writer David's just met at a book event. … a McCartney Stackwaddy game. … when did rock souvenir posters become a thing? ... why Robert Crumb didn’t apologise. ... how we scored on the new life Questionnaire. … “the longer I practice, the luckier I get”. … Burke Shelley, poet laureate. … and an almost encounter with Colin Firth. Plus birthday guests Paul Cook and Steve Cadman. These are Paul Cook’s excellent Furlough Fashion posts and videos …   https://furloughfashion.co.uk/ And a trailer for the new King Crimson doc ...https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4222272025/?playlistId=tt10148150&ref_=vp_rv_2Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things given a grilling this week in hot pursuit of revelation and entertainment … .. would YOU pay £45 to see Ian Brown and some backing tracks? … the life of the late Joe Bussard, collector of 25,000 78s “who partied like it was 1929”. Joe thought real jazz ended in 1933 and the last great country record was Jimmy Murphy’s I’m Looking For A Mustard Patch. We love this man. ... career-shrinking band names. … Chunkz, Pieface and the Beast: new adventures in stadium-filling entertainment. … is Nuggets the most famous and influential compilation ever released? … best albums of cover versions – among them Moondog Matinee, the Seeger Sessions, Irish Heartbeat, McCartney’s Back In The USSR, Pin-Ups, These Foolish Things. … Paul Scholes meets Gary Neville. … rock stars separated by a single letter. … and more songs about seagulls and chips.   A short film about Joe Bussard here …https://youtube.com/watch?v=OPhtR09p6zM&feature=share&utm_source=EKLEiJECCKjOmKnC5IiRIQhttps://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/arts/a-loving-obsession-with-oldtime-jazz.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare Desperate Man Blues …https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375702/Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon to receive every future Word Podcast early, ad-free and with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In powerful pursuit of amusement and distraction we aim the piercing supertrouper of scrutiny this week in the direction of … … why Ry Cooder MUST write a memoir. … records that sounded like nothing you’d ever heard before, eg the Message by Grandmaster Flash and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love.   ... nighttime footage of the State Funeral rehearsal. … why ‘Delhi Crime’ on TV makes the Wire’s Baltimore look like Stoke Poges. … dinner with the “fantastically indiscreet” Tony King. … why Hilary Mantel was such a phenomenal writer – and an extract that demonstrates it. … the return of the Stackwaddy game: James Brown/Frank Zappa track or advertising slogan? … Beefheart selling Aldous Huxley a vacuum cleaner. Plus … birthday patron Ed Newman beams in from his shift at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary with thoughts about Ravel’s Bolero, Dylan and Beatles podcasts and an inspired music book idea with a medical twist that someone must – MUST! – publish!Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon to receive every future Word Podcast ad-free and before the rest of the world!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights, the radio played “music for a solemn occasion” and this week’s pod is a reflection about the woman who’s been Queen all our lives (and we’re old enough to remember the national anthem being played in cinemas), why she looked so heroically bored, her diplomatic approach to clapping, whether she viewed life “through binoculars held the wrong way round” and how hard it will be – and how long it will take - to adjust to a world without her. And the wonderful tale of Dave’s personal wave.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole world of extra and exclusive content and benefits: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.