Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness @WordInYourEar
Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness  @WordInYourEar
Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
05:30 - Quintessential Englishness
21:13 - Len Deighton
27:30 - Band names
35:18 - Any Other Business with Alex Gold
46:04 - Birthday guest Jonny Wren

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A milky tea, a jam sponge and this week’s news served on a tin tray with a steam train painted on it points our very English conversation towards the following …

… what connects the Monkees and a British Prime Minister?

… when are you too old for Indie?

… A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi? A Bar on The Piccolo Marina? Noel Coward or Neil Tennant?

… the Move, the Streets, the Kinks, ELO, Ian Dury, Anthony Newley, the Jam, Herman’s Hermits, Cat Stevens, Arctic Monkeys and other acts with a sense of Englishness

… Girl in the Thunderbolt Suit: when Marc Bolan went science fiction

… how London Zoo could have put the tin lid on the Beatles

… the daft story of Randy Scouse Git

… how Michael Caine cooked up the name Harry Palmer

... the most English pronunciation of a songword ever

… Black Crowes, Byrds and the allure of misspelling

… Roxy, 10cc, the Hollies, Manfred Mann, Human League
and other original line-ups we want to reform

… plus Angine de Poitrine, Kaleidoscope rebooted by Jimmy Page and birthday guest Jonny Wren.
Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of EnglishnessHave we reached Beatles Overload? Discuss!Terry Reid, the man who really invented Led Zeppelin, & guitar fetishism29 July 2026Is Indie the new Good Old Days? And why are there no British country stars?‘Bob Dylan is my father’ - and why Sam Sussman is convinced it’s trueThe Undertones are 50! And no-one’s more amazed than Damian O’NeillMark Kermode tells us stories about music in moviesOzzy Osbourne, Jaws, the lost world of mix tapes & the movies’ most chilling momentJohn Otway – Micro-stardom, 5,000 gigs and how to capture a crowd in 20 secondsJah Wobble - 40 hilarious unedited minutes interrupted by a pest control officerThe Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic showpiece then ‘washed up’ aged 21
Word In Your Ear |

Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness

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