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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Music Commentary Music Music Interviews Music History

Update frequency: every 2 days
Average duration: 43 minutes
Episodes: 858
Years Active: 2007 - 2025

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Podcast 327: It's three lemons in a row for Richard Thompson!

In which we ponder the hellhounds on Robert Johnson's trail, the song Randy Newman's second wife let him write about his first, the BBC's upcoming re-run of Live Aid and the longest-running rock and …

Thu 28 May 2020

Word Podcast 326 - the Sony Walkman's 40th birthday...

... and how Astrid Kirchherr invented Indie.In which we update the Pink Floyd wars, remember launching Q and marinade in the calming qualities of Lee Sklar's lockdown bass adventures.Lee Sklar – on b…

00:53:03 | Fri 22 May 2020

Word Podcast 326: the Sony Walkman's 40th birthday and how Astrid Kirchherr invented Indie

In which we update the Pink Floyd wars, remember launching Q and marinade in the calming qualities of Lee Sklar's lockdown bass adventures.

Lee Sklar – on bass guitar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D…

Thu 21 May 2020

Word Podcast 325 - Fairport's momentous year...

... and the curious tale of the Beatles-busting Sgt 'Nobby' Pilcher.In which we play the Stack Waddy game, ponder the fate of live rock and roll and investigate the B-side that gave Joan Jett a caree…

00:49:04 | Fri 15 May 2020

Word Podcast 325

Fairport's momentous year and the curious tale of the Beatles-busting Sgt 'Nobby' Pilcher.

In which we play the Stack Waddy game, ponder the fate of live rock and roll and investigate the B-side that …

Thu 14 May 2020

Word Podcast 324 - How to impersonate Roy Orbison...

... and other pop parlour games.In which we get Alexa to play Stack Waddy, Carly Simon meets James Bond, we wonder if girls make passes at rock stars in glasses, and remember Millie, Dave Greenfield,…

00:58:43 | Fri 08 May 2020

EARLY ACCESS Word Podcast 324 - How to impersonate Roy Orbison and other pop parlour games

In which we get Alexa to play Stack Waddy, Carly Simon meets James Bond, we wonder if girls make passes at rock stars in glasses, and remember Millie, Dave Greenfield, Florian Schneider and the first…

Thu 07 May 2020

Word Podcast 323 - this week's lockdown winners are...

... the Incredible String Band, Mr Chalk and Mrs CheeseIn which we celebrate the 50th birthday of The Who's "Live At Leeds", wonder why the Incredible String Band suddenly sound so right and talk abo…

00:47:41 | Thu 30 Apr 2020

Word Podcast 322 - playing Pink Floyd Snap...

... reading old music papers, and telling Alexa to button it.In a packed programme David and Mark continue their quest to second-guess Amazon's mysterious lady DJ, remember the man who used to buy th…

00:44:59 | Thu 23 Apr 2020

Word Podcast 321 - How long does lockdown have to last...

... before we play unplayable albums?Just how desperate do you have to be before you give John and Yoko’s “Two Virgins” or Michael Nesmith’s “The Prison” a spin? Also in this episode, another round o…

00:33:45 | Thu 16 Apr 2020

Word Podcast 320 - paying tribute...

... to the special talents of John Prine & Adam SchlesingerAlso in the episode: pink moon over London, waking up to birdsong, Brinsley Schwarz at the Fillmore and the strange majesty of old Melody Ma…

00:30:07 | Wed 08 Apr 2020

Word Podcast 319 - another unashamedly trivial podcast...

... in which Mark Ellen and David Hepworth discuss milk in rock, read your correspondence and invent a game you can play with Alexa.Massively encouraged by the fact that nobody tried to physically st…

00:29:07 | Wed 01 Apr 2020

Word Podcast 318 - A "for the duration" podcast

In which Mark Ellen and David Hepworth talk about Joni Mitchell, Krakatoa and the importance of dressing properly while WFH.Since they're spending a proportion of the Current Unpleasantness talking t…

00:28:57 | Thu 26 Mar 2020

Word Podcast 317 - Pete Paphides

Pete Paphides' acclaimed "Broken Greek" is, as David says when introducing him, the best book written by a former Smash Hits reader and looks set to do for unjustly uncelebrated popular music what Ni…

00:53:49 | Fri 13 Mar 2020

Word Podcast 316 - Dan Franklin

Dan Franklin's first book "Heavy" chronicles his life-long love affair with heavy music in all its different manifestations, from Meat Loaf to Sunn 0))), and argues that it deserves a lot more respec…

00:42:17 | Fri 13 Mar 2020

Word Podcast 315 - John Mitchinson and Andy Miller

John Mitchinson and Andy Miller do the award-winning Backlisted podcast which, as they like to say on the tin, "brings new life to old books". They're also big music fans so we thought they would be …

01:02:54 | Mon 24 Feb 2020

Word Podcast 314 - Bethan Roberts

We were delighted to welcome Bethan Roberts to Word In Your Ear to talk about her novel “Graceland”. This is based on the most important relationship in the life of Elvis Presley. His mother Gladys b…

00:41:14 | Tue 18 Feb 2020

Word Podcast 312 - Mike Barnes

In his new book "A New Day Yesterday", an account of progressive rock in the 1970s, Mike Barnes tells the story of how this peculiarly British musical form was born out of the Small Faces' "Itchycoo …

00:55:32 | Wed 22 Jan 2020

Word Podcast 313 - Sid Smith

When Sid Smith first finished his definitive biography of King Crimson in 2001 he thought, not unreasonable that would be that. But then Robert Fripp reactivated the band and so Sid had to take up hi…

00:53:42 | Wed 22 Jan 2020

Word Podcast 311 - Alexis Petridis

Alexis Petridis was very lucky Elton John chose him to help tell the story in his best-selling memoir "Me". Elton John's equally lucky Alexis agreed because without him it probably wouldn't be half a…

00:58:41 | Thu 05 Dec 2019

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