Kate Mossman has strong feelings about rock stars past their prime

Kate Mossman has strong feelings about rock stars past their prime

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold June 16, 2026 Duration: 48:57

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 paperback! – where she relives her meetings with a variety of legends, eccentrics and old lags whose music she finds particularly compelling and wonders what they all have in common. This typically funny and colourful conversation stops off at …

 

… the attractive fallibility of rock stars past their peak

 

… a lifetime’s devotion to Paul Simon

 

… “Olivia Dean is the Carole King of her generation”

 

… the ridiculous expectations we heap on musicians’ creativity

 

… why Arts Criticism is under threat

 

… when the first record you buy (aged five) is the Chicken Song

 

… “One-Hit Wonders have achieved infinitely more than most of us”

 

… Ray Davies and his “eternal sense of apartness”

 

… why George Michael is under-appreciated and the time he found someone living under his floorboards

 

… the days when Jeff Beck modelled PVC jackets for Rave


 … the genius of Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion

 

… and the new acts who’ll still be huge in ten years’ time.

 

Order copies of ‘Men Of A Certain Age’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Certain-Age-Encounters-Royalty/dp/1788705645

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Word In Your Ear
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