{"podcast":{"title":"Word In Your Ear","slug":"word-in-your-ear-3755187","podcast_index_feed_id":3755187,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5ff0586154e2a73589267809?cache=false","website_url":"https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/5ff0586154e2a73589267809/1620937674526-4e6eb29c967e869bd9d5a9d205d55599.jpeg","author":"Word In Your Ear","episode_count":986,"summary":"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 . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T06:19:56.425854+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187"},"episode":{"title":"Prefab Sprout - a tale of mystery, eccentricity and pop’s most famous motorbike","slug":"prefab-sprout-a-tale-of-mystery-eccentricity-and-pop-s-most-famous-motorbike","published_at":"2026-07-02T10:27:39+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187/prefab-sprout-a-tale-of-mystery-eccentricity-and-pop-s-most-famous-motorbike","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187","url":"https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ff0586154e2a73589267809/e/6a463d1ba736775b260a7afb/media.mp3","summary":"Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscrutable story – and involves some delightfully off-road “deerstalker” investigation. You’ll find self-sabotage, square pegs in round holes, the eternal pressure to have hits, and a devoted portrait of ringmaster Paddy McAloon that leaves you convinced there’s never been anyone quite like him before or since. This sparks off in a million directions, these among them …   … the lure of bands who'd clearly been to the library and were unlikely to have a huge hit   ... Paddy’s stoic defence of their name   … his distaste for “diary songwriting” of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen   … Jesse James, Elvis, Hey Manhattan: the obsession with the romance of America   … the archive of unrecorded songs (one box labelled ‘For Rod Stewart’)   … how the success of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll came to haunt them   … the inconceivable moment they appeared on the National Lottery with Bob Monkhouse and Mystic Meg   … pop tribalism on the school bus   … the dreadful circumstance that lead to I Trawl the Megahertz   … Paddy’s visual transformation from tousled pop star to hermetic semi-reclusive Gandalf   … and the fate of the Steve McQueen motorbike.   Order ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ here … https://linktr.ee/newmodern_books?lt_utm_source=lt_share_link#566128608. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","meta_description":"Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscruta…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2500,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/word-in-your-ear-3755187/episodes/prefab-sprout-a-tale-of-mystery-eccentricity-and-pop-s-most-famous-motorbike/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187/prefab-sprout-a-tale-of-mystery-eccentricity-and-pop-s-most-famous-motorbike.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}