Word In Your Ear
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.
Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.
Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com.
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- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 857
- Years Active
- 2007 - 2025
Bret McKenzie on Flight of the Conchords, Hollywood and writing songs for frogs and unicorns
Bret McKenzie now mainly works on movie soundtracks, the Simpsons, Minecraft and the Muppets among them, which brings the pure delight of hearing his songs sung by Lady Gaga, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mi…
Del Amitri’s Justin Currie has faced every tough crowd imaginable. Lessons were learn
Justin Currie recorded and toured with Del Amitri and solo for 30 years and his travelogue The Tremolo Diaries perfectly captures the rhythm of life on the road. He talks to us here about combative c…
Ozzy Osbourne, Jaws, the lost world of mix tapes & the movies’ most chilling moment
Just when you thought it was safe to listen to a weekly rock and roll podcast …
… how Black Sabbath discovered the dark side
… why Elvis went onstage with a pistol in both boots
… rock stars out of t…
The late Nick Drake’s manager on the nine-year project “The Making Of Five Leaves Left”
Cally Colomon looks after the legacy of Nick Drake, who died in 1974 but attracts new teenage admirers all the time. Here he talks to David Hepworth about just some of what that involves, including:
…
Suzi Quatro - how Dad, Elvis and Mickie Most transformed my life
Suzi Quatro’s been onstage from the age of 14 as the bassist in the all-girl showband the Pleasure Seekers and the rock act Cradle. And then moved to England in 1971 when signed by Mickie Most. This …
New Nick Drake tapes, Bob Marley’s masterpiece and the Coldplay ‘kiss-cam’.
A rain-splashed, dub-filled, cash-scattering foray into this week’s news and events which happily lands upon …
… meeting Maddy Prior – a Prior engagement? – and the time Steeleye Span showered their …
The story of David Ackles, who never recovered from putting out “the best album ever made”.
Picked up in the great singer-songwriter sweep of the late 60s and signed to Elektra Records, David Ackles made four albums which went over the heads of the record-buying public, attracted over-the-t…
Kevin Rowland, Oasis, Velvet Sundown – and do we want the truth or just a good story?
Our patent fact-from-fiction separator goes into overdrive this week though sometimes, as Robert Wyatt observed, Ruth is stranger than Richard. High in the mix …
… FOMO (Fear Of Missing Oasis), Gen Z…
John Otway – Micro-stardom, 5,000 gigs and how to capture a crowd in 20 seconds
John Otway – self-billed as “Rock And Roll’s Greatest Failure” - has played 5,260 gigs in 53 years, a record possibly only beaten by BB King. There are more this autumn of course. He simply can’t sto…
Peter Hook looks back at Joy Division, New Order and how not to be a DJ
Peter Hook, bold pioneer of the high, clambering, tune-filled bassline, is touring this autumn with Peter Hook & the Light. We talk to him in Prestatyn - about to deejay at mate’s birthday - about th…
Live Aid remembered – from inside and out – on its 40th birthday
A 40th anniversary special with two of its presenters (Hepworth and Ellen) and old pal and TV critic Boyd Hilton who watched on the day aged 18 (“young, pretentious, idiotic”) and reviews the new BBC…
Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull and 58 years of one-legged live performance
Ian Anderson is touring again in 2026 and talks to us here about tweed stage-wear, an audience of four, his teenage heroes and the first shows he ever saw and played. There’s all sorts within, includ…
Album sleeves the modern world would ban & the best song titles and opening lines
It’s Happy Hour in the Rock and Roll Lounge of News and we’re working our way through anything over 40 per cent proof. Which means ice, a slice and ….
… how the F-Bomb lost its impact.
… Mick Ralphs …
Bobby Bluebell’s thriving third act, ‘80s Glasgow and the gift that keeps on giving
Bobby Bluebell remembers the “cuddly duffle-coat friendship” of Glasgow bands in the early ‘80s and the Bluebells’ second act rebooted by the Volkswagen ad. The band are touring again and an even big…
Dubmaster Dennis Bovell has had 50 fun-filled years making magical records
Dennis Bovell has worked his dub magic on everyone from Janet Kaye to the Slits, the Pop Group, Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood – and his own band Matumbi. He talks here about the thri…
Rick Wakeman once signed a contract guaranteeing he’d wear “at least one cape onstage”
Rick Wakeman was onstage from the age of five and looks back with us here on a life of live performance – jazz and blues bands, the Strawbs, Yes – and ahead to this autumn’s tour performing King Arth…
10cc’s I’m Not In Love is still weird & wonderful! - plus Kneecap & Carol Kaye
Chasing the shade and applying Factor 50 in the wilting heat of this week’s rock and roll news turns the conversation to …
… Kneecap v the Prime Minister.
… will any openly anti-Trump musician find it…
When Peter Hooton, the Farm & Eric Cantona played Clash songs in an amphitheatre
The Farm are touring again this summer and have just made their first album for 31 years (with the same-line-up). This sparky and wide-ranging conversation with Peter Hooton stops off at the followin…
Carol Decker of T’Pau and the ocean-going world of the 80s package tour
Carol Decker - another Smash Hits cover star on the podcast! T’Pau are playing dates this summer and autumn and she talks here – hilariously - about life on the ‘80s package tour circuit and the firs…
The magnificent Sly Stone & Brian Wilson and the curse of our expectations
As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich’. The two-man canoe navigates this week’s rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legen…