Word In Your Ear

The raw ingredients of this week’s news gently diced, simmered and served as a nutritious broth. And flavoured with the following … … why Lily Allen’s divorce album doubled the value of her house … how can you play real living people as fundamentally bad after Steve Coogan’s ‘Lost King’ court case? … the cowbell on Honky Tonk Women, the guiro on Gimme Shelter, the tambourine on classic Motown: Richard Pite gives a percussion demo … Kraftwerk, 10cc, Coolio, George McCrae – more records that sound unique … music used in movies to say ‘we’re flying East!’ … You Have Selected Regicide, Kill Wealthy Dowager: Morrissey song or line from the Simpsons? … Woodbines, potted herrings, Paris buns: things we expect to find in Van Morrison’s soon-to-open childhood home ... why it’s worth hearing Mishima by Philip Glass and John the Revelator by Son House … the time Jack Ashford was flown across America just to add a tambourine … people who found they had a famous father … and Mick ‘Two Pairs of Maracas’ Jagger and what Eno predicted about I Feel Love.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 “Steve” the singer … how the songs were written - “we never asked what they meant” … and how they were arranged: “I locked with Johnny like Charlie with Keith, and Andy played a bass song over the top” ... memories of Johnny at X Clothes in Manchester and Morrissey in ‘82 - “funny, dark, so Manc” … the “almost anti-punk” appeal of the Buzzcocks and the urge for a John Maher red Premier drumkit … “Morrissey’s articulacy was both his strength and his Achilles heel” … echoes of Motown and James Honeyman-Scott in Marr’s guitar … “Singers need to feel they’re the most important person in the room” … on-stage gladioli versus “the austerity of the Hacienda” … and Morrissey today - “very angry” - and the legacy of the Smiths.   Order copies of ‘The Drums here: https://www.resident-music.com/product/joyce-mike-the-drumsHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

 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 = Reassuringly valuable? Cheap = Worthless? … a new Taylor Swift album in ‘sweat and vanilla-perfumed orange glitter vinyl’, anyone? … and the tricks singers use to disguise the fact that they can’t hit the top notes anymore. … plus ‘the Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria’ by Blue Öyster Cult and birthday guest Phil Hopwood on best and worst concept albums.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still touring nearly 50 years later, just back from filling Mexican stadiums with Rod Stewart. And next May launching his acoustic ‘Songs & Stories Tour’ in theatres, intercut with film clips and hoary old tales from the battlefield. He looks back here at … … Smash Hits cover shoots and Rewind package tours: “what a glorious time the ‘80s was” … the soul phrases he stole from Free and his impression of “the Paul Rodgers moan” … discovering James Taylor, the Doors, Gregg Allman, Vinegar Joe and Van Morrison … supporting Bob Marley when the crowd threw a dead duck at Joe Jackson – “and hit him!” … Mike & Bernie Winters in panto - “I was rolling in the aisles” … playing Led Zeppelin, Cream and Patto and the Bill Withers and Albert King covers that launched him as a singer … memories of Live Aid – “I wish I’d thought about it more” … “What am I, a performing monkey?” … when Midge Ure told him the opening line of Band Aid had actually been a secret audition – “Simon, Tony Hadley or me” … the “deafening” Slade at Luton Tech, the night the DJ played Black JuJu by Alice Cooper … the over-cranked news story that he’d lost his voice … and the night the Mafia came to Rhode Island. Tickets for ‘Paul Young – Songs & Stories’ here: https://www.awaywithmedia.com/tours/paul-young-2026Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

‘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 the memory plays tricks … songs that get you out of trouble on stage … bootlegging albums on his reel-to-reel, aged 12, complete with noises off - eg “Bridge Over Troubled Water plus a voice telling me Reach For The Sky was on telly!” … a word-perfect recitation of Mr Tambourine Man … listening to the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll when the rest of the school was Glam Rock … buying Ronnie Lane’s amp, “like returning home with a religious relic” … “the power of music”: meeting someone who’d heard him on the radio beyond the Iron Curtain … anxiety about American border control: “I was advised to get a new phone. As if that’ll make any difference. I’m Billy Bragg, political songwriter!” … lost off-grid in Salt Lake City in the days before internet … “Music can’t change the world but it gives you the ability to think it can be changed” …plus Ian McLagan, Desmond Dekker, Ry Cooder, Jam b-sides and Motown Chartbusters Vol 3. Order Billy Bragg: A People’s History here: https://burningshed.com/billy-bragg_a-peoples-history_book https://www.billybragg.co.uk/product/billy-bragg-a-peoples-history-an-oral-history-in-the-words-of-people-who-have-been-moved-by-his-music/Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 last Whistle Test composer”: two bars of ET, Jaws or Star Wars and you instantly know the film … how “silent cinema was never silent” and his band the Dodge Brothers playing live soundtracks … Butch Cassidy, Easy Rider, Blackboard Jungle … pioneers of the music video … the genius of American Graffiti: “Lucas wanted it so marinated in music the town would sound like a pickle jar” … how scores are recorded and edited and what happens when a director tells an orchestra he’s changed his mind … “by the time each Lord of the Rings soundtrack reached New Zealand, Peter Jackson had re-cut the film” … Forbidden Planet in 1956, the days when electronic scores weren’t real music … Martha Reeves, Jonathan Richman and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver … Tarantino’s kitsch use of “his own scratchy vinyl” and why Jonny Greenwood‘s There Will Be Blood is unique and exceptional … plus the “atonal squonking” of the Exorcist and the greatest soundtrack of all time. Order ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/mark-kermodes-surround-sound/mark-kermode/9781447230564Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 Morrissey was just “Steve from Stretford” and Bowie “some bloke in Beckenham” … Elvis Costello, the Nashville Rooms and how Mark escaped being “killed to bits” … is there a better sign of obsession than being able to name all a band’s members? … Your challenge: listen to the Dead’s Dark Star for the first time. Discuss! … esoteric tracks played by mobile coffee vans … “Gor Blimey, hello Mrs Jones. How’s old Bert’s lumbago?”  … plus JJ Cale, Canned Heat, Cameron Crowe and Fred Neil’s The Dolphins.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 Leicester Square “sitting on stools playing acoustic R&B” … winning the talent contest that got them a record deal and a worldwide hit with “the third song Rod ever wrote” … playing Murray the K’s Christmas Show when No 1 in America with “all our heroes” - the Shirelles, Patti LaBelle and Ben E King … his father’s warning when he wanted to go to Art School … the misspelling of Odessey And Oracle and its rushed recording at Abbey Road – “in mono when everyone wanted stereo!” … “only Kenny Everett and Penny Valentine liked it”: the album’s afterlife, “now ranked alongside Revolver and Pet Sounds” … how he still hits “my suicidal top notes” and the old trick of pointing the mic at the audience if you don’t want to sing them … life in an insurance office when the Zombies split and “the three writers had made all the money” … and Al Kooper, Denny Laine, Russ Ballard, Rod Argent and the time Mike Hurst inexplicably relaunched him as ‘Neil MacArthur’. Order tickets for the Believe In Miracles Tour here: https://www.colinblunstone.net/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 1968 was Last Chance Saloon for Plant, Jones and Bonham … the second British Invasion and why America was so ready for them … “the Hindenburg was only 30 years earlier. Imagine using the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on a cover now!” … their claim that critics always hated them in the face of massive evidence to the contrary … Plant’s publicity stunts before he joined the band – Harold Macmillan, Legalise Pot, the Noise Abatement Society … … the ‘60s Birmingham scene v the London scene… their eternal grievance about the press sparked by the “Ground Zero” moment of Rolling Stone’s 1968 review … the venues they played - the Toby Jug in Tolworth, Pirate World, an aqua theater, an ice rink in Vegas … and the bands they shared bills with - Frosty Moses, Kimla Taz, the Ladybirds. Order a copy of Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly here: https://lansdownebooks.com/Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear