Word In Your Ear

Sam Sussman’s mother Fran had a year-long love affair with Dylan when he was working on Blood on the Tracks – she’s mentioned in Tangled Up In Blue – and they met again in 1990. What she told him about that relationship is mapped out in the book he’s just written, Boy From the North Country, along with the firm belief that he’s Dylan’s son. Imagine how that must feel. This extraordinary conversation takes a number of turns and thes...

Tom Bailey’s been based in New Zealand for the last 30 years, making records, DJing and avoiding British winters. He tours the UK in 2026 playing the Thompson Twins’ greatest hits and looks back here from Auckland at the first shows he ever saw and played, all this high in the mix …

... dance music and the British Invasion of America

… the inspiring delights of Some Kind Of Mushroom, his local record shop in Chesterfield

&...

The raw ingredients of this week’s news gently diced, simmered and served as a nutritious broth. And flavoured with the following …

… why Lily Allen’s divorce album doubled the value of her house

… how can you play real living people as fundamentally bad after Steve Coogan’s ‘Lost King’ court case?

… the cowbell on Honky Tonk Women, the guiro on Gimme Shelter, the tambourine on classic Motown: Richard Pite gives a pe...

Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …

… the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even...

Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …

… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a fortune

… Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and the art of being the Other One in a pop duo

… Bohemian Rhapsody, O Superman, I Feel Fine: records that sounded like nothing before them

… what links the Prodigy, Wet Leg, Daft Punk and Donna Summer?

… how all bands need a bad patch to ...

Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still touring nearly 50 years later, just back from filling Mexican stadiums with Rod Stewart. And next May launching his acoustic ‘Songs & Stories Tour’ in theatres, intercut with film clips and hoary old tales from the battlefield. He looks back here at …

… Smash Hits cover ...

‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packed with old snapshots, concert bills, reviews and ephemera. It’s very good indeed. He looks back here with us at …

… meeting Taylor Swift – “and we both knew who the other was!”

… a total of 2,700 gigs – “not counting prisons, In-Stores, Port-A-Stacks and picket lines”

…...

The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by the marriage of movie and soundtrack since Dougal and the Blue Cat (aged 6) and, with Jenny Nelson, has just published ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’. We talk to him here about…  

… Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, Edgar Wright: the new generation “w...

This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …

… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions

… the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener”

…. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life”

… bands whose story means more than their music

… Ni...

The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too …

… when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over a...

This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at ….

… the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967

...

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …

… will rock bands get offered the Saudi money?

… “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030”

… Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted

… the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats

… “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads”

...

The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about ….

… how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming

... what ...

Steering the supercar of enquiry round the rock and roll racetrack with the occasional stop for a tyre change. Foot-to-floor moments this week include…

… why are the British so hung up about posh pop stars?

… the 10-second moment of his stage routine that Springsteen must find addictive

… the flaming bra, the flying dress, the human horse: Lady Gaga’s most OTT entrances

.. would YOU want Madonna as a sister-in-l...

London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of electro-pop and many writers, designers and photographers. The author and broadcaster Robert Elms was one of its cornerstones, “a place for people who’d outgrown the 20th Century”. We talk here about his book ‘Blitz: the Club That Created the ‘80s’ with all of this on the dancefloor …&nb...

Prince’s commercial peak was Purple Rain but John McKie thinks Sign O’ The Times was his creative masterpiece and tracked down over 200 collaborators, girlfriends, “Prince whisperers”, assistants and admirers to piece together the story of its construction (without allowing himself to use the word “genius”). Which leads us up some colourful, spot-lit alleys, among them …

… “a man in suspenders playing funk”: why a disastrous s...

Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip, the Kings Road store that was a magnet for rock’s glitterati in the late 60s.

•⁠ ⁠Sheila Cohen, the first queen of cool; she invented the whole idea of vintage

•⁠ ⁠Nigel Waymouth, who never went to art school but changed the face of London with his posters

•⁠ ⁠John P...

News, rants, theories, stories and assorted old hokum which this week stumbles into …

… Kate Bush, Thunderbirds, Tim Buckley, the Blind Boys of Alabama … the magical bass adventures of Danny Thompson (and the time he headlined over the Beatles)

… how Claudia Cardinale wound up on the sleeve of Blonde On Blonde

… would Roxy Music have made it if their albums had been released in brown paper bags?

… how TikTok is ...

We’ve always liked Thea Gilmore who once crossed America with Joan Baez in a pre-Election campaign tour and has released 21 albums (“I’ve got musical ADHD!)”. She looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves …  

… a deep dive into Jake Thackray – “Last Will And Testament still makes me cry”

… spotting her dad in the crowd in the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival movie and why “My dad treat...