Word In Your Ear

Beloved Australian songwriter Paul Kelly has just turned 70 – “it sounds Biblical, threescore years and ten.” He looks back here at the road he took to get there, from early days in Adelaide to the pub circuit to his catalogueof stirring and eloquent songs about the big issues of life and love, as Neil Finn says, “with not a trace of pretence or fakery”. You’ll find … … the moment he felt he’d arrived … the story of How To Make Gravy – “a Christmas song with no chorus about a man in prison” – and Rita Wrote A Letter, its ghostly sequel … early records he loved – Tommy Roe, Peter Paul & Mary, Yes, Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, the “chaotic” Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong … life on the Melbourne pub circuit playing Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Hank Williams … touring with Leonard Cohen – “a masterclass in performance, like a prayer, a ritual, like a Vaudevillian Rabbi” .. the storytelling songs of the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers and Buck Owens ... the great Calypso cricket tradition and the track he wrote about Shane Warne … “the odd-sock drawer”: the file in his computer where he stores early sketches … I’m In Love With A Blue Frog, the five chords that underpinned 50 years of songwriting! … the intricacy of Neil Finn’s impressionistic lyrics … and the things you hear in your songs when someone else sings them. Order Paul Kelly’s ‘Seventy’ here: https://paulkelly.lnk.to/seventyHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucinda Williams was a teenage activist singing We Shall Overcome at protest marches and she’s taken up the cudgels again on her new album World’s Gone Wrong. She talks to us here from her home in Nashville about … … early inspirations - Dylan, Donovan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Buffy Sainte-Marie – and her love of Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake and ‘60s British folk … playing Delta blues for tips at Andy’s in Bourbon Street in 1971 … her sudden favourite Beatle switch – “Paul … then George!” … her Dad’s Ray Charles and Hank Williams records … seeing jazz pianist Sweet Emma Barrett in Preservation Hall in the ‘60s and Hendrix at a New Orleans sports arena … the effect of her stroke in 2020 and having to re-learn the guitar – “I tend to write in G now as it’s the easiest chord to play” … the allure of medieval murder ballads, “far too dark” for most Americans ... songs she always plays live (one by Neil Young) … finding her tribe in Nashville – “when I arrived people asked, ‘What church do you go to?’ not ‘Do you go to church’?” … being “a quarter Welsh” … and the song she wrote about her president in 2018 – 'We have slow-danced with the devil/ We have swallowed the liquid of his lies’ - and the new version she’s just recorded. 2026 tickets here: https://www.lucindawilliams.com/tour Order World’s Gone Wrong here: https://30tgrs.ffm.to/worldsgonewrongHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shock, horror, public outcry and moments of moral turpitude plus with the usual news, rants and old hokum, which this week alights upon … … why Gene Simmons thinks “musicians are treated worse than slaves” ... the high noon of Madonna and her foil-wrapped Sex book … is Rufus Wainwright pop’s most successful nepo-baby? … how CMAT forced Bertie Ahern to pull out of the Irish Presidency … the Stackwaddy Quiz: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You? Getting Killed? Sinister Grift? Pitchfork Album of the Year or an entry in the Berlin Film Festival? … from Mods & Rockers to illegal raves: pop scandals that hit the headlines … can we blame Gap for the moment kids started to dress the same? … was the death of Top Of The Pops the end of the pop consensus? … Fela Kuta, arrested 200 times … Jackson Browne, “never far from tragedy” … is ‘70s funk and soul the best driving music? … 42 year-old hears Hejira and the Stooges’ Metallic KO for the first time … plus Tetsu Yamauchi RIP, David Sylvian in a converted ashram in New Hampshire and birthday guest Sandra Austin. CMAT’s Euro-Country (which skewered Bertie Ahern): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz8_HxITJF0&list=RDnz8_HxITJF0&start_radio=1 Dave Brubeck ‘playing’ Golden Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZsHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the word ‘punk’ come to mean 50 years later? It’s been adopted by the very people it sought to unsettle. Chris Sullivan – DJ, club runner, lecturer, former band-leader – arrived in London just as it kicked off and looks back at a time when everything was a challenge, no-one apologised, outsiders linked up and fought for recognition, and pop culture could change overnight. We talk to him here about ‘Punk: the Last Word’ which traces its roots from Socrates to Soho, touching on… … does ‘punk’ now mean conformity? … is pop music still allowed to be outrageous? … Socrates, Rimbaud, Lee Miller, the Warhol superstars: 2,000 years of people who embody the punk philosophy … how the clothes often precede the music … the 1975 pre-Pistols world – “people dressing as teddy boys, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, records by Patti Smith, the Velvets, MC5” … the days when you were attacked for dressing up, in his case by the Newport Rugby team and a guy with a starting handle at a service station ... new punk equivalents emerging in 2025 … how the spirit of punk gave people a drive and identity – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Ross, John Galliano … “I threw a policeman through a plate-glass window” Order ‘Punk: the Last Word’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/punk/stephen-colegrave/chris-sullivan/9781915841254Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UK Subs formed in 1976 when Charlie Harper was 32. They’ve had over 80 members, some of whom he can’t remember. They never split up and are touring in 2026 to celebrate his 82nd birthday. “I vowed I’d keep playing as long at the Stones - which I’m now starting to regret!” After 50 years on the punk frontline, he’s the first to see the humour in going deaf and “having to have the occasional sit-down”. This fond and honest conversation looks back at … … seeing the Stones at Ken Colyers’ jazz club and drinking with them in the Porcupine … making £4 a day – “a fortune” – playing tube stations in 1964: “ex-buskers never get stagefright” … “dreadlocks, Afros, convoy cuts” – confessions of a teenage hairdresser … what he learnt from Joe Strummer and the 101-ers … his punk epiphany: seeing the Damned at the Roxy in 1976 … playing France’s Hellfest to 30,000 people and why the spirit of ‘77 still burns on the West Coast … famous fans: Guns N’Roses, Hanoi Rocks, Dinosaur Jnr … the UK Subs’ run-in with US Immigration … skiffle, Jesse Fuller, Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, Donovan and mid-‘70s R&B …the onstage rigours of getting old: “I don’t get adrenaline anymore and have to have the occasional sit-down!” … Where Did I Leave My Glasses? Why Did I Come Upstairs? – our fantasy tracks for the senior citizen! Order UK Subs tickets here: https://ww.uksubstimeandmatter.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16899&Itemid=161Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.