Songs about sweltering heat, Willie Nelson’s braids and is vinyl now ‘luxury goods’?

Songs about sweltering heat, Willie Nelson’s braids and is vinyl now ‘luxury goods’?

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold June 1, 2026 Duration: 47:53

Chasing the shade and slapping the Sunscreen on this week’s overheated news, we pour a tinkling drink and reflect upon the following …

 

… British people in hot weath-ah!

 

… when rock stars you haven’t seen for 50 years pop up on Zoom

 

… Lennon’s tooth? Timberlake’s toast? Mooney’s school report? Weird things sold at auction

 

… Paul Horn playing in the Taj Mahal, Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge, U2 in Slane Castle

 

… are new vinyl albums now ‘luxury goods’ and old ones ‘antiques’?

 

… where you can hear the Abbey Road building on the Dark Side of the Moon

 

… the cinematic records Daniel Lanois made in an abandoned movie theatre near Santa Barbara

 

… Summer In The City: the Lovin’ Spoonful’s road-drill and Regina Spektor’s cleavage

 

… Cat-calming music! Gym motivation! Stress-busting songs for Spurs fans on Judgement Day! The age of the prescriptive playlist

 

… the new dawn of instrumental music, “a public utility like turning on a tap”

 

… and the single Sinatra recorded for Maureen Starkey (only one copy made!).


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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
Georgie Fame, Ben Sidran and the golden age of ‘60s Soho [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:16
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Duration: 38:00
Steve Hackett’s seven years in Genesis get re-explored when he tours in October, along with ‘solo gems’ from the records he’s made since, the latest ‘the Roaring Waves’, a collaboration with old pal Steve Rothery. He loo…
Mari Wilson, our favourite girl about town, takes Neasden to Chelsea [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:53
Mari Wilson has drunk deep of all that London nightlife has to offer, from a London Transport social club in Wembley to a posh venue in Chelsea via the Cooks Ferry Inn in Edmonton, and she remembers it well. Here she mar…
All music is dance music! – and the best stage name ever [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:52
Another over-heated week put through the conversational air-conditioner, which involves … … the man who got rich writing words that could never be sung … Anna Bullock? Stefani Germanotta? People who’d never have made it…