Racy pulp paperbacks, teenage Joni and the BRIT School versus the age of the amateurs

Racy pulp paperbacks, teenage Joni and the BRIT School versus the age of the amateurs

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold February 8, 2026 Duration: 47:26

Unredacted exchanges about the rock and roll underworld this week highlight the following …

 

… real or made-up stars’ kids’ names: Speck Wildhorse? Blue Ivy? Everly Bear? Motorhead Michelob?

 

… man plays drum solo with his head!

 

… Olivia Dean, Lola Young, FKA Twigs: what do today’s ‘professionals’ learn at the BRIT School and what happened to the age of the amateurs?

 

… why Joni Mitchell’s life was even more extraordinary before she was famous

 

… Three Dog Night, Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, Linda Ronstadt: American acts that never broke Britain

 

… rude, racy, naughty, delightful: our love of old pulp paperbacks  

 

… “Go to your room, young lady, and play a Nick Drake album in its entirety!”

 

… and when Dandelion became Angela.

 

Plus birthday guest Paul Higham and why most stars’ stories need a lively biographer.


Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


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: 100

Word In Your Ear
Podcast Episodes
The glorious story of Funk from James Brown to Off The Wall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:54
Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that flavour…
Nick Lowe’s miracle payday, Rock feuds and a giant inflatable Jarvis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:35
Panning for gold in the murky waters of this week’s news, we found the following … … is Sabrina Carpenter’s aunt the voice of Bart Simpson? … is punk now just a small room in the giant apartment block of Goth? … why band…
The Damned at 50 and the memories (and regrets) of Rat Scabies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:42
The Damned are – yes! - 50 years old with three of the originals still onboard. And just starting a world tour. In this immensely funny and touching podcast, Rat Scabies (who’s smoking!) points up the repercussions of li…