In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include …

… “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music’s worth stealing.”

… cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track’ by Kate Bush.

… when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid.

… what was written on Walter Matthau’s funeral card.

… “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.

… double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width.

… how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence.

… Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written?

… “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa’s house.

… things we never say on the Word podcast.

… when rock critics get it wrong.

Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.

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We first saw Graham Fellows as Jilted John on Top of the Pops in 1978 and we’ve followed his characters ever since, especially drawn to the keyboard-prodding, car-coated John Shuttleworth and his deathless pop anthems ‘Pigeons In Flight’, ‘Up And Down Like A Bride’s Nightie’ and ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’. Graham talks here about how and why he created them (and rock media studies lecturer Brian Appleton) and his new book ‘John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit’, along with … the allure of romantic punk rock (Patrik Fitzgerald, Buzzcocks, the Undertones), Sheffield mouse-breeders, comic melancholy, whether Northern humour is funnier than Southern, kissing Debbie Harry for a publicity shot, the advice his father gave him and the finer details of the Shuttleworth live experience.

Order 'John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit' here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Shuttleworth-Takes-Biscuit-Selection/dp/1915841305

John Shuttleworth tour dates:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/john-shuttleworth

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …

… Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?

… and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy villains with real life versions in the Kremlin and White House?

… why a Jam reunion would never have worked.

… when did ‘cool’ change from meaning exotic and unconventional to being just like everyone else? And why do we picture the concept of ‘cool’ in black and white?

… in stout defence of the pilloried record reviewer!

… why the Olympics was payday for Justine Frischmann.

... when Johnny Cash was on the Muppet Show and was photographed with Richard Nixon.

… how come no-one complains about old online reviews but they do if they were physically printed?

… how Lonnie Donegan made a fortune from Nights In White Satin.

… hurrah for the silencing of the Pedicab boombox!

… newspaper sellers, milkmen, shifty ‘hot goods’ vendors: whatever happened to the street cries of London?

… plus birthday guest Paul Monaghan and rock stars who were architects – Art Garfunkel, Ice Cube, Pete Briquette, Chris Lowe, Ralf Hutter …– and teaching Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.