Word In Your Ear

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 Timothée Chalamet ding-dong: is it still safe to voice an opinion? … Harry Styles’ 67 dates in just 7 locations: how ‘Destination gigs’ throttle the competition … was Wings a worse name than the Beatles? And McCartney as a shepherd: discuss … what makes a song work as a football chant? ... the most unusual things we've heard sung by crowds …. Stormfront, Gothic Serpent, Midnight Hammer, Rolling Thunder … album title or US military campaign? … why we love improv theatre … when Champion Jack Dupree lived in Halifax and Kid Creole in Rotherham … plus barrelhouse blues piano, ‘inflicting’ music on people and birthday guest Avi Chaudhuri & rock music as community singing.Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 singing … the rock star who misses the music press most … “a Likely Lads for the rave generation”, anyone? … the speed at which news now travels … Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson, Ben Sidran and Boz Scaggs, Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer, Steve Martin and Martin Short … in praise of inseparable old pals! … Anfield Rap (Red Machine in Full Effect)! Lift it High (All About Belief)! Whatever happened to football singles? … I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left, Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, Trouble Over Bridgewater: albums you bought because you liked the title … “English radio stations won’t play new music!” Really? Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the Sensual World, Us, Monster, the Rhythm of the Saints and other great experimental sequels to big-selling albums.Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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 non-digital research that’s filled his archive with yellowing back numbers of Disc & Music Echo. It’s “nirvana for any fan”, the title hinting at the level of detail – ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night, the Day By Day Story Part 1: 1940 – 1971’. He joins us here from Los Angeles to talk frock coats, deathless tunes and own-foot-shooting setbacks, and what he learnt about the band from compiling it. Which involves … … their magical run of 16 hits from 1964–68 (by a sole songwriter) … the five people who ran and managed the band and what they had to put up with … the last chance saloon backstory of You Really Got Me and the Jimmy Page rumours … the Kinks’ alleged black-listing on the American tour circuit … Ray’s “unauthorised autobiography” and perpetual self-sabotage … Granada TV’s record of Alan Bennett and John Betjeman as possible co-writers for Arthur ... the 12,000 miles required to re-record three seconds of “Lola” … the ways Reprise, Pye and Marble Arch sold the Kinks catalogue   … and Ray and Dave’s live debut as “the Kelly Brothers”. Order copies of ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night’ here: https://beatlandbooks.myshopify.com/Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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, that celebrates Britishness and suburbia made largely by immigrants that broke every Hollywood rule, a film made to capture the essence of the Beatles before the bubble burst “which turned out to be the start of something not the end”. She talks to us here about … … the film’s connections with the Goons, the Young Ones, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Billy Liar, It’s Trad Dad and the Nouvelle Vague … and its influence - from the Dave Clark Five’s Catch Us If You Can and Paul Jones’ Privilege to Charlie XCX and the Moment … how the train sequence for I Should Have Known Better invented pop video … the play John and Paul wrote (Pilchard!) that was a homage to its scriptwriter Alun Owen … Paul’s two-day solo shoot with Isla Blair and other (mercifully) deleted scenes ... Profumo, pirate radio, the changing Britain of 1964 … Pattie Boyd, Anna Quayle, Alison Seebohm and other stand-out female stars … Wilfred Brambell’s gigantic fee and how badly his part has aged … why George and Ringo emerged as the stars … surely the greatest scene? – “She's a drag, a well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things” … “hair that moved!”: the film’s impact in the USA … “beat-up and depraved in the nicest possible way” … and how the dubbed-on dialogue about Ingmar Bergman made the German version “a film for cineastes”. Order Samira’s book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-days-night-9781839029394/Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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, all mapped out in his book ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’. He talks to us here from New York about what he discovered when writing it, which touches on … … deep-end Dylan and Beatles fans: which can be “crankier”? … the Chaplin-like comic timing of Dylan’s early shows and the humour of the Beatles’ early stage act … the song Lennon and Dylan wrote, recorded and then lost – now possibly in the Dakota archive   … the theory that 4th Time Around refers to the four Beatles songs clearly derived from Dylan … first impressions of each other - “Teenybop music!” “Folk crap!” – and how both acts were crowd-pleasers who could feign indifference … when the two superpowers met at the Delmonico, Warwick and Savoy hotels … Dylan in ’66: “girls still scream at me … but in a different way” … the night Bob, Paul and Dana Gillespie saw John Lee Hooker at Blaises … how Lennon’s I Want You was a direct response to Dylan’s song of the same title … the 15 Dylan songs played in the Get Back sessions … Bob’s touching low-key visit to Lennon’s childhood home … and the failed attempts by Bob and McCartney to collaborate. Order copies of ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’ here:https://www.waterstones.com/book/where-the-music-had-to-go/jim-windolf/9781399627849Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Mark Lewisohn began his Beatles’ trilogy in 2003, the first volume appearing ten years later. He’s hoping the second, Turn On, which covers 1963 to 1966 and every recording session, might be ready by 2031 and working “nine days a week to achieve it, assembling a framework and then sliding it together”. Further good news – his lecture about their life in 1962, Evolver62, is now available on film! “No matter how deep you dig, there’s gold there”. He talks to us here about … … how you research such an infinite subject and know when to stop … the one-in-a-million coincidence in the story of I Saw Her Standing There … the attractive world of telegrams, postage and showbills from the days “when the Beatles were still like us” ... how AI has muddied the waters and misinformation (like “Woodbine’s Boys”) becomes established fact … “people are reshaping the Beatles’ story as what they want to believe” … those perilous moments when their career seemed in the balance … the Beatles v Shakespeare and which has the greater agency … the Lewisohn work schedule - “6am til bedtime, nine days a week” … the “rank amateurs” Decca signed the year they turned down the Beatles … James Brown’s invented spat with Beatles and the struggle to separate fact from fiction … Paul’s private battle with Nik Cohn … and the US merchandise disaster, “a book in itself” https://www.marklewisohn.net/ Order Evolver:62 on these links:UKhttps://amzn.to/4bP7bGSUS and Canadahttps://apple.co/46m6L7xhttps://bit.ly/4qsUXHyhttps://bit.ly/45SSvTuhttps://amzn.to/4pXf4gLDVDhttps://bit.ly/3Zap37FAnd copies of the Tune In book here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-All-These-Years-Tune/dp/1408705753/ref=asc_df_1408705753?mcid=3bbe6ad2416f31d59786d0f169b18876&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697210774528&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7934131385361801281&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072502&hvtargid=pla-525100023999&psc=1&hvocijid=7934131385361801281-1408705753-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1 Tune In (trade edition):https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-All-These-Years-Tune/dp/1408705753/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Z5U3TCUCHL4Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iARC_o0NanHFRSyWD51V1iwunMv6f4RVXwczxRVhEfk.HhdP2t3MG4xUMoVQHwdVFQUL7a9gWFWI-jjw6pvwhNw&dib_tag=se&keywords=lewisohn+tune+in&qid=1771317358&sprefix=lewisohn+tune+in%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.95fd378e-6299-4723-b1f1-3952ffba15af Tune In (Extended special edition):https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-These-Years-Extended-Special/dp/1408704781/ref=sr_1_2?crid=Z5U3TCUCHL4Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iARC_o0NanHFRSyWD51V1iwunMv6f4RVXwczxRVhEfk.HhdP2t3MG4xUMoVQHwdVFQUL7a9gWFWI-jjw6pvwhNw&dib_tag=se&keywords=lewisohn+tune+in&qid=1771317358&sprefix=lewisohn+tune+in%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-2&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.0fa28f01-6fca-4422-af4e-d52d5ad71bfeHelp us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Spinning sides at the conversational disco to see what fills the dancefloor, which this week includes … … Jerry Garcia had seven fingers! Brian Jones had seven children! Morrissey worked for the Inland Revenue! … the most terrifying villain in the history of cinema   ... is pop music becoming inbred? … when Neil Sedaka made records with 10cc (and Abba) … Happy? Get Lucky? Crazy In Love? What was the last hit single the whole world seemed to be singing? … Noddy Holder, Kim Wilde, Robert Wyatt, Gary Numan: what makes you a National Treasure? … rock and roll puns and double-entendres … “drawn from the national conversation”: the divine Englishness of the Pet Shop Boys … the Gilded Palace of Sin, In The Court of the Crimson King and other records we bought because of the title … and acts wiped out by the Beatles “like corn before the sickle”.Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Glenn Tilbrook wrote an album with Chris Difford about a futuristic nightclub when they were teenagers and, 52 years later, they’ve recorded it and are performing it on the upcoming tour. He looks back here at the partnership that once wrote 200 songs in three years, the first gigs he saw, his recent decision to take control of the group and what’s changed the way they sound. Among the highlights … … what he learnt from watching Radiohead and Doechii … when you walk into a teashop and Tír na nÓg are playing … T. Rex and screaming girls at the Lewisham Odeon – “comfortable, confident, thrilling” … Terry Reid, Traffic, Bowie and darker memories of Glastonbury 1971 … “that age when Pickettywitch are as engaging as the Rolling Stones” … the song that came to him in a dream … constructing “a knockout set that’ll slay any audience” … winning a talent contest at Butlins in Clacton, aged 12 – “a week’s free holiday!” … “the breadth and depth of what we can do now outstrips the way we were”. Order the ‘Trixies’ album here: https://squeeze.lnk.to/trixies And Squeeze tickets here: https://www.squeezeofficial.com/Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Stuart Adamson co-founded the Skids and Big Country but was profoundly ill-suited to the spoils of his success. Author Scott Rowley unpacks his passage from Dunfermline to Nashville and Hawaii to get a sense of his demons and what drove and inspired him. He talks to us here about his compelling new memoir ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ and touches on … … hints of troubled family life in his early lyrics and the shadows of his father and grandfather … that famous three-word review: “More crusading porridge!” … the guilt of his success when he returned to his Dunfermline roots … why learning to sing is unwise! … how Big Country were saved by Steve Lillywhite and the resentment about their being sold as a pop group … Nick Drake, Sinead O’Connor … “people who should never have been given a record contract” … insurmountable friction with Richard Jobson … how Nevermind made the old rock landscape look outmoded … “guitars that sounded like bagpipes!” and other hoary old clichés … “empty, breast-beating, bombastic!”: the rigours of the rock press consensus … and how Big Country nearly played Live Aid. Order ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Stay-Alive-The-Life-and-Death-of-Stuart-Adamson/Scott-Rowley/9781917923538Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear