Prefab Sprout - a tale of mystery, eccentricity and pop’s most famous motorbike

Prefab Sprout - a tale of mystery, eccentricity and pop’s most famous motorbike

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold July 2, 2026 Duration: 41:40

Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscrutable story – and involves some delightfully off-road “deerstalker” investigation. You’ll find self-sabotage, square pegs in round holes, the eternal pressure to have hits, and a devoted portrait of ringmaster Paddy McAloon that leaves you convinced there’s never been anyone quite like him before or since. This sparks off in a million directions, these among them …

 

… the lure of bands who'd clearly been to the library and were unlikely to have a huge hit

 

... Paddy’s stoic defence of their name

 

… his distaste for “diary songwriting” of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen

 

… Jesse James, Elvis, Hey Manhattan: the obsession with the romance of America

 

… the archive of unrecorded songs (one box labelled ‘For Rod Stewart’)

 

… how the success of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll came to haunt them

 

… the inconceivable moment they appeared on the National Lottery with Bob Monkhouse and Mystic Meg

 

… pop tribalism on the school bus

 

… the dreadful circumstance that lead to I Trawl the Megahertz

 

… Paddy’s visual transformation from tousled pop star to hermetic semi-reclusive Gandalf

 

… and the fate of the Steve McQueen motorbike.

 

Order ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ here …

https://linktr.ee/newmodern_books?lt_utm_source=lt_share_link#566128608.

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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
Podcast Episodes
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