The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton

0:00You're watching or listening to Word in Your Year, of course you are, as you're never alone with a show that lights upon everything ever invented in the art of conversation. Whether that's regrettable rock and roll footwear, daft things audiences do, epic stage names, tracks to play at wedding parties or the outer limits of El McGantry's velvet opera. Do leave a like or subscribe by going to patreon.com slash Word in Your Year to discover further delights on offer. And now get stuck into this. You're listening to a podcast from the Word. Hello Mark, I'm back. Welcome home. Nice to be here. I've got a statuari. You'd be thrilled to know. I just had an email from a listener called Mike Gray who said that the Apple podcast transcription

1:02struggles with it. If you listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, there is a transcription at the bottom and it's so funny. It's just pretty random. It's struggles with the word stack wadi. It comes up a stank warding, stag wadi, stank wadi and stat wadi. So this is probably a bugger off hitmakers would be, would be multiplied to, you know, to hear that prove too complicated for you. You'd probably find if you corrected it once, it would then be correct. Henceforth, you know, I do think the amazing thing about, I do keep saying it about this technology is it kind of works. You know, it's definitely told you a few years ago that they were able to automatically transcribe one of our podcast ramblings and it would roughly approximate to legible sense. You'd have said no, that's impossible. But it's proven to be the case, isn't it? Absolutely. And it's learned over the years what Elmer Gantry is. Yes. It can identify.

2:02It's that again. It is. It's a better and a wise and mechanical because it can't be a coincidence of doing that. Okay. So my stank wadi concerns the subject of attempts to follow up or exploit the success of characters in various hugely successful sitcoms. Okay. And what I've got in front of me, I've got six here. Okay. And there's some of them are real and some of them I just made up. Mark and it's up to you. Okay. So I don't know how he's not just one that's made up. It could be more than one. It could be more than one. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to start with Andrew Sacks, who of course we know was Manuel from 42. The 40-tiles star played a man who died and found himself in heaven. And the program was called Dead Ernest. Dead Ernest. Is that real or is that completely... Am I going to respond after each one? I think I am. Yes.

3:03You know, weirdly I think that is real. It is. Because he was a hot ticket at the time and they were to throw in anything at him at all. Dead Ernest. Okay. How about one where Mel Smith had of not the nine o'clock in the years played a vicar who moonlighted as a bookie and it was called by a short head. Okay. What do you think? I think it made that up for the other reason that Mel Smith, the two things you know about Mel Smith, massive gambler, quite a boozer actually, but also addicted to horse racing. Oh, silly. And in between takes would ring his bookie, wouldn't he put money on horses? So I think they're... I don't know. It's made up. Okay. It is made up. Carla, the mention of this, go by without throwing in my favourite Walter Mattel fact. Walter Mattel was legendary punter, you know, spent fortunes. Early he made films because he was always the odysbucky absolute fortunes. And when he died, when is this, you know, sometimes in the last ten years, the order of service for his funeral on the back of it, it had his tips for the racers later that brilliant.

4:08That's brilliant. Oh, that's sweet. That's fantastic. Okay. Move it on. A dad's army spin off featuring Pike, Fraser and Hodgers running a seaside. Pay it here. It was called it sticks out half a mile. No, you made that up. I didn't. I did it. It did one series in 1977 and 1978. Okay. Move it on. It's out half a mile for now. Okay. Harry Enfield played a private eye showbiz journalist Gary Bloak in a series called Celeb. Is that true? I feel like it would be true. I don't know why. It is true. 2002 did one series. Okay. Moving on. Bob and Thelma from the likelihood. We know them. Remember them well. Abandoned their dreams of what would mobility to run a library and a poor part of New Castle. And it's called a fine romance. I can't. I can't. I'm going to say it's true. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true.

5:09It's not true. I mean. I can see you. I can see you on this zoom. I can see you were reading that off something. So I figured maybe it was. But now it's something you wrote. I wrote it. Okay. And finally. Okay. A spin-off from are you being served in which all our favourites relocate to a country house. There have been left by young Mr. Grayson is well and it's called Grayson Favour. Is that true? Or did I make it up? I think you made it up because it's just such a good title. I don't know. Am I right? Am I wrong? You're wrong. It was real. It was a real thing. So there you go. I think I'll win that. You totally win. You totally win. It's a good scene. I've gone on for you. I've gone on for you. I don't think we've done this far. I hope not anyway. It relates to Dolly Parton. And actually I have to say because you were away on Hollywood. We're both on Hollywood last week. And so we didn't talk about Dolly Parton. But I do think it's a it's just lovely when somebody liked Dolly Parton.

6:11You know, it's some of the whole world can agree on. Do you think at the moment we all went to some sunlit, sparkly upland and talked about how much we adored Dolly Parton. Also she's one of those people where you know you always really admire her anyway and liked her. And then the more you discover about her, the more you like her. It was like Robin Williams and Sean Locke and Alan Rickman. Those people are the more you learnt about them after they died. The more fabulous they've seen, the more they helped other actors and other rising comedians and stuff. But I also thought that there's one of those things where whenever you met someone in the street of mate, they'd always have two or three things to say about Dolly Parton that they'd picked up from the news stories. And there were always the one line. Did you get on this? There's a lovely one where she's interviewed by somebody who doesn't realize she's wearing a wig and they say, how long did you take it to your head? She's, I don't know, I'm never there. Never there. Yes. The other one was, they always grew up out of life as a teenager. And I was just like every other girl, you know, I used to get up in the morning, get dressed, go home. Really good guy.

7:13And the other thing was that everyone knew she was a multi-instrumentalist. We caught the end of that classed and brief show. And there's a bit in the state of about five minutes. She plays, I think, guitar and accordion and auto harp, a fiddle, a soprano, sax and a banjo. It's pretty fantastic, really. But anyway, the other thing was, she wrote children's books. Didn't she? She wrote a few Billy the Kid dances his heart out and Billy the Kid comes home for Christmas. So Dave, here are. For your delectations, six children's books by musicians. Five of them are real. And one of them is invented by me. And I've got a little summary of the plot of each one, okay? So the first one is, is this real or not? Well, you can wait till the end of that. Jimmy Buffett wrote a book called The Jollymon in 1988, set on a remote Caribbean island called Banana Land. A man named The Jollymon plays an enchanted guitar and sings with the voice so beautiful, it leures fish from the sea.

8:17That's real. Yeah, actually that is real. Yeah, very odd. Okay. Number two, Marcus Mumford wrote a book for his son Barnaby. It's called Barnaby and the Drumming Bear. In 2012, a lonely little banjo named Barnaby, loses his silver strings right before the big Barnyard stomp. With the help of a whistling hedgehog at a drumming bear, Barnaby journeys through the whispering wood, discovers the true music doesn't come from shiny strings, but from the steady rhythm of your heart. Okay. That's real. He wrote that one. He wrote that. He didn't listen. Didn't they? You wow. I knew putting more work than I thought. Barnaby and the Drumming Bear is your invention. It's my invention. Where is it? So don't anybody try and publish it because Marlkelland's got the copy right. I've got the copy right to that one, yeah. Connie Love in 2000, a full read of a book called Princess Eye.

9:18An amnesiac alien princess named Eye escapes her revolution torn homeland, wakes up stranded on the streets of Tokyo. Armed only with a mysterious heart shape box, she rises to fame as a rock singer, falls in love with a human musician named Kent and flees the demons pursuing her. That sounds horrifyingly real. It's real. It's real. 50 cent wrote a book called Playground in 2011, 13-year-old Butterball, an overweight and angry teen, is forced to see a therapist after violently attacking a peer in the school playground. His parents divorced and their moves to suburbs have turned into a bully now seeking redemption. My goodness. Is that real? Yes, real. There's real I have a cat about his own life. Tudy go, right? Madonna? The English rose is 2003. For schoolgirls are jealous of their beautiful way. That was real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. Absolutely, she did write that. Gloria Resterfans, my last pitch for you, the book called The Magically Mysterious Adventures of No-El,

10:22the Bulldog. Okay, an odd-looking Bulldog, named No-El is adopted by a young girl, but worries she doesn't fit in compared with the fast Dalmatians or the swimming fish. By performing small, helpful acts like retrieving a ball, No-El discovers her unique talents and the true beauty Dave comes from within. Okay. Is it? It is kind of nauseous, I think, is it? Really? The idea that if Pops are now, children's book, and a platform of the house, why the hell should they? For crying out loud, because every clown in the world thinks right in the children's book is easy. It's not. It's not. It's really hard to do. It also writes that it has to have kind of moral heft. It's got to have kind of some kind of full of personal device. Except if you look at the really successful ones at the past, they didn't have that at all, you know? Things you read, they're just weird. You know, things that your children,

11:23you know, gotten on to years ago, really odd things. And also when I think, what's the earliest case I remember of a Pops are writing a kind of, why was sort of a children's book? There's a John Lennon wrote, you know, whatever it was, to expand you in the words of, what was the two wrote two books, isn't it? Yeah, it might write the Spanish. It might have expanded in the road. And they were full of kind of outrageous, semi-upsetting things. Were they? And he didn't have to apologize for that at all, did he? He just, people just accepted it. Just out of guard. It was just Lennon being Lennon, was it? It was. It was kind of our art student hygiene, you know? Yeah. Whereas if anyone is going to write anything nowadays, it has to have a, it has to have a definite moral purpose. No, it's funny. I tell you the odd thing about, one of the odd things about Don't Leapun, you know, that, you know, I remember Don't Leapun from kind of way back.

12:24And for years, let's be frank about this. Don't Leapun only came up in public discourse for years to be the butt of a joke. Basically, she was, yeah. About a bosom. Yeah. She said, which is the reason she liked so much, was so taken by her husband when she first met him. They were married for 60 years, was that he looked at my face? When he told him. I'm sure she's been really funny. Well, and also, it's actually developed this, this kind of public persona, which most people treat it as a bit of joke. And then, and then there was a kind of damocene conversion where suddenly everybody didn't treat it as a joke at all. And so what she did all the time was play a kind of dead bat to it all, which was to tell jokes about itself. Yeah. That's what she did. I get there before you can get there with your crack. You know, I've heard them all, you know. And because it changed overnight from, oh God, she's a kind of dumb blonde too.

13:25Oh, she's been playing us for years. Oh, yes. She's neither dumb nor blonde. Well, you're the idiot. Yeah, she's got ridiculous now. You didn't realize what I've got. And Lacer Prister, what a genius. Whatever. And Jo Lean and I will always love you. On the same morning, you know, all that kind of stuff. You have, I've got, I've got granddaughters. And there's quite a successful series of children's books. I don't know which publisher did them, which is about kind of, I can't remember the name of the series, but there were sort of feminist heroes for young girls, you know what I mean? So you're obviously, I don't know, you've got, what's the name of the Ada Lovelace, the one who pioneered the computer. Yeah. And you've got, what do you have? A woman, a penicillin. Well, French woman, I can't remember. Anyway. And then one of them is Donnie Pond. And it's got a ton of illustration on the front of this. Somebody with a guitar, but there's massive kind of cloud

14:28of blonde curls. And you know, and her life is just reduced to, you know, Tennessee, Mountain Home kind of thing. You know, getting married, poor dog, no. I will always love you. And it's always a triumph against adversity. And so my granddaughters, their first musical preferences, they're very expressed. And you know, they come up here where I'm recording this now and say, can you play, play some Dolly? Just play some Dolly. There's no real idea who she is or was. You know what I mean? It's just a character. Like any other character, like, you know, the Tiger, he came to Tear. Yes, but you've got a really clear cartoonish idea of what she looks like. And you could draw Donnie Pond with just a cute wig. Could you in some rhinestones in a banjo? And you'd know in silhouette in three seconds. You do a sketch of it. You know, meet me if it was. And so oddly enough, she was far more famous and celebrated

15:30in the last 20 years of her life than she was before. Which is not something you could say about most people. The same thing that didn't apply to the out of the tummy when they saw what a loretta lin or whatever. And so it just, the number of people familiar with the concept of Dolly Pond and very keen to tell you how they approved of the concept of Dolly Pond. Before you knew. I like the way you did. Yeah, you probably never heard of it. I'll be not to ever. Yeah, absolutely. Just grew massively over the years. And so, yeah, I was a Wayne France. I think she died just before I went to France. But you know, you'd turn on the radio on the TV in France. She was there. You know, in France. You could've used something. That's slightly odd, isn't it? Well, no, it's not odd. She was just... No, not remodeling. Famous of all over the world. But personally and nationally to see who adored her more. Yeah. And then I'd do all these facelars of Dolly Fest going to be in London, isn't it, next year?

16:32It's great. I love it. I thought it was one of those wonderful moments, actually. And of course, Alex has got his pitch taken with her, isn't it? Because Alex is not with us this week. I'll produce them. Alex and one of his many bands. They did a residency of Dollywood, didn't they? Dolly playing ukulele, I think, didn't they? That's right. And part of the perks of being an act is that Dolly clearly knew them. But you'd like a member of the Royal Family. She knew the importance of the photo op and, you know, the waving to people and, you know, and so they along with the other act had their pitch had taken... a pitch has taken with Dolly Parton, you know, which is... That's a heck of a thing to tell you. It is a great thing for young children. Yeah, definitely. I was a brother. A brother of your grandchildren will still be reading the children's book many years to come. I only ever saw her once and that was... And that was by mistake. I mean, really, I was in Central Park in 1977 with a palamine. And was a concert going on and the perimeter fence had a little hole at the back.

17:33We had to see someone have pulled the perimeter fence up to get in. So we wondered if he'd know who was on, actually. And we wondered around, we got right after the fun. It was Dolly Parton. I can't remember that time thing. Well, it's Dolly Parton. I've seen Dolly Parton, but not thinking. Wow! Ledge! Did it? Were you not there? Well, we went to Hammersmith, Odien, Zia. I thought you were. You're pretty clear. No. Well, were we Brent Hansen, Art Mutual Jump? I think Brent organised the tickets. This must be one of the last times she ever played the UK. She had a bluegrass album. She could've been made back to the Roots Bluegrass album, the Bluegrass band. And Brent thought we should go and see her. And she was terribly good. But it was... It's where you realised, particularly this station, must be 20 years ago now, that Dolly Parton was the kind of... She was in the sights of various different special interest groups

18:34who wished to claim her as their regent, you know what I mean? And one of them, at the time, where what I can only describe is militant lesbians. Yeah. And two of whom mounted what I can again only describe as a stage invasion with the attempt to kidnap Dolly from before our very eyes. And they were foiled in this by an alert security man. She was on stage. I'm not telling you the story, Mark. They were going to drag her off. They were coming along from the side. They were going to van and drive across. They made their way across the orchestra pit at the side, onto the stage. And they were foiled by an alert security man. I remember him well, Burley Chap wearing a blazer, who rushed on stage and removed their objective, this being Dolly herself. And he literally picked her up as those

19:35she were a dummy in the window of Grace Brothers Department. Put her under one arm. Put her under one arm and carried her off. A Dolly, to be fair, was so encased in the sort of the shooting that she was wearing and the hair and everything was in place. Right, there was no stone encrusted armor. There was no part of her that was capable of independent movement. And say, I'm not joking. And she went off sideways. Yeah, that's brilliant. I'm not making this up at all. She was carried off pretty much quite a sideways, but kind of diagonally. While these two militant loadings were dealt with, and then she came back on. It got me the utter pro. It was like nothing. I don't think there was any. She would have just kept going. Anyway, Joley, Joley. Well, pro. It's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen on the stage. And I thought you were there, but clearly you weren't.

20:36No, I wasn't. I wish I had been. I feel as though I was, Taufe. You're tuned to Word in Your Year, the longest continuous conversation in rock and roll. OK, welcome back. I've just come back from my holidays, that we've been saying. And I've been in France, Mark. And in France, I always do the same thing. We're driving around. I tune my radio to Radio Fit. And I somehow convince myself, I'm in a minor actor in Betty Blue or something. You do. And me and Beatrice Dowell are pulling our way over the stage. Pulling our way over the sand dunes into two CVs. Listening to that creative music that just all sounds fantastic in France. And of course, no, you can get this at home, equally easily. And I just thought it was interesting subject to talk about. So we go in touch with our radio head, the man we consult on any subject concerning radio. Our old mate Trevor Dan, hello Trevor.

21:36Hello Dave, hello Mark. Trevor, I'm loving to see you. Are you familiar with Radio Fit? How would you describe it? If it was being described in the world of radio, how was it being described Trevor? I think it would be described as the sort of radio station you'd never get any listeners for in England or Britain because it's just too diverse and too eclectic. It's got a bit of Radio 3 about it. It's got a bit of kind of weird community radio stations about it. I mean, you did describe it in your eloquent introduction as being something that's on the radio. Right. There's an antiquated term. Exactly. Next thing you know, you'll be inviting me to tune in. And I don't think we do that anymore. I think what we do is we get out of this thing and we tap a few buttons and there it is, whatever service we want.

22:37I would say that curiously enough, although I can understand your enthusiasm for Fit, I think it's probably moving in the opposite trajectory of the way radio is going. Because most radio is getting kind of smaller and smaller. And narrower and niche, isn't it? So if you want all day classroom music, it's there. Yes. If you want, I mean, I accidentally, I asked a word, I won't say it. I asked her to play Hotel Chambermaid by Graham Parker, because there's a piece in the garden about Graham Parker. I'd love to hear that again. So I asked for that and mistakenly I left it on. So it then played me a load of things that it thought I would like. And do you know what? It wasn't far out. Right. Next song was, have a nose un-missable now. And the next song was something by Bruce Springsteen from Nebraska. And so on and so I thought this is really rather nice.

23:39And in a way it was a radio station, but in another way it was just an AIDJ, wasn't it? It was trying to second guess what I wanted to do. Yeah, yeah. But you get me into Fit for a moment. I mean, as far as I could work out, this is just from listening to it. What I find appealing is, of course, I don't understand what they're talking about. I'm not sure if it was right. We should explain all of the themes. Because there's a thing called the Direct, which is their kind of main stream, which is just an interesting mixture of stuff from, I don't know, the last 10 decades or whatever. But also the specialist things, isn't it, Trevor? There's the Jazz one, there's the Electro one, there's a Pop one, there's a World one. So you can find types of music themes that suit you. And they sound to me as they sound much more like a Spotify curated playlist. Yes. So you go on and you say, I like Nick Drake. And then it plays you a lot of things that are a bit like Nick Drake. Yeah, yeah. And so whether that's radio or whether that's streaming,

24:39I don't know, it depends on how you receive it. I just remember there's one called Cult, which Dave and I were talking about. Describe this, I looked at how it describes this, I have a sense, it's landmark recordings and enduring favourites that have earned a place in musical memory. And I played it yesterday and they had white stripes followed by the BG. François Arde, Diana Ross, Bob Marley, Miami Sound Machine, Tom Waits, Beyonce, Bobby McFair and the Dawes and Benny King. I thought, that's great. That is great. Now let me tell you something about the way that radio works in this country. All the people who have ever earned any money out of it, particularly obviously commercial radio, would tell you that that playlist doesn't work. Yes. It reminds me so much of my time at GLR in London. People would say, you can't be that diverse, you can't play the Beatles and then play Kylie Minogue, it doesn't work. And you've got to narrow down your playlist until you're almost playing the same record over and over again. Yes.

25:39That way you give the audience what they want and we used to argue. And I can remember you and I, Dave, in Radio One Days, having a discussion about whether Radio One should play what people like or what people might like if they heard it. And the winning argument was always the second of those. Well, after that, in subsequent decades, we lost that argument. And then it just became, you know, let's be as niche as we can. Let's be for, I mean, there is one big radio station, this country which, uh, a validly describes itself as for 25 to 35 female C2D. Yes. You know, and that's why it's got Gary Davis on it. You know, so the advice always from the professionals is just get as niche as you can. Yeah. Surprise anybody. Don't, you know, but at the same time, yes. At the same time, pretend that you're surprising people.

26:40Oh, yes. People like to feel that they listen to my diet is diverse and eclectic and so forth. But it's not really. No, given the choice, they make it narrower and narrower all the time. Well, I think it's not, this is not a direct parallel, but it is a little bit like going into a book shop. I mean, you'd never walk in, I don't think, you know, to a massive great foils or even a water stone and just say, oh, I fancy a book, but I don't know what. I'll just grab anything off the shelves. You know, you'd go then, you'd say, well, I want a book about cricketers or I want a book about, you know, Roman legionaries or something. And you've already got an idea in your mind about what it is you want. And I think people nowadays expect that from radio because we're not any longer in a position of scarcity. I mean, I was thinking about the three of us, we can remember radio before radio one.

27:40Yeah. I remember when, if you wanted to hear ticket to ride or can't buy me love, you had to sit there for weeks and you had to sit through Val Dunicon and mountain varny and Ella Fitzgerald. And actually, it gave you a broader understanding, it's not appreciation of all types of music. Well, now, if you're 12 years old, you just press that one button and you get that record you like all the time. And you, Ke'ay, good to listen to it again and again and again all the time. But they go back to fear. One point about FIP, I don't think I'm right in saying this, that they're boasters. They program kind of three hour blocks, don't they? And they also have this curious thing that all they're, all they have presenters, in a vertical mess, who come in every fourth song are all female, which I do think it's interesting. Because it gives it a very different kind of texture to it. But anyway, they're proud boasters. And the song here, you won't hear it again for another 75 hours

28:42or something like that, which is very much different from the way most radio is run, isn't it? Absolutely right. The promise of radio is the three records you do like, you'll hear them going soon. The other thing that FIP have done in the last decade or so is dropped a lot of traditional radio furniture. So there's very rarely a news bulletin. Yes. I don't do the travel. I used to do travel news for Paris. And they don't do that anymore. So it is the... The no reference the outside world at all, isn't it? It goes back to my Beatrice Dowl dream. It's kind of like that, isn't it? Yes. And maybe it's not live. Yes. I think it's probably voice tracked. Just explain voice tracked. Because this is something that everybody in radio entirely understands. But nobody in the outside world does at all. What does it mean? Well, take boom radio, for instance. I saw David Lloyd who runs it last week.

29:42And he was saying something very interesting about how his audience, he believes, really enjoys the fact that the DJs are not in a studio. They like being told, hi, it's Simon Bates here in Wildest Dorset. And then the next DJ is in Scotland or in Nottingham or somewhere. What it means is that you sit there with your computer. And the program comes up and says, you know, reach out, I'll be there. The four tops. And then you see that the next one is daydream believer. And you press your button and you go, the four tops there, it's marvelous. Here's the monkeys. And you see, we can all work on that. Let me just drop it in. It just drops in. Exactly. And the program is designed so that the previous song,

30:42if it doesn't stop, if it has a fade, it has what's called a fade point. So your link is placed over the fade of the outgoing song. And then it plays. And then the next one starts. I often find myself listening to classic FM occasionally for the dentist or whatever. And I always think the same thing, you know, Ali Jones or whatever, who's been doing programs on that forever. I think these people are not sitting in a studio for three hours every day. They make too much money for this. They just sit there doing a little links once a week or whatever. That's it. Post them. And that's what they do on fit. Because if they're not referring to real life and news and stuff, they can easily do it. And it is attractive hearing these voices. And if you don't speak much French like me, I can't understand what they're saying. And I find that really attractive too, because there's nothing to annoy you. It's like a personality or what they're saying that might annoy you. But I just think it's worth pointing out another thing I do, which I think is very clever, which is we're talking about ways you can get people engaged.

31:44And they do this thing, Dave and I were talking about the other day, where they have well-known people doing not very well-known songs. And well-known songs by not very well-known people. So you get the port of Amsterdam by Jacques Brill sung by David Bowie and then you get across the universe by Fiona Rappel. That's quite a clever thing, because you've got a way into both, haven't you? I was going to mention having talked about Boom. This is something that they do very well. Boom is the station, if you haven't heard it, that's aimed at people of our age. It's a catastrophic mistake, except it works. And it has a lot of listeners. It is the biggest growing radio station in the UK. It's fantastically popular. And one of the ways in which they've done that is they've completely turned their back on this idea of niche. And they've said, OK, well, we're 55-plus people who like a range of things. And the delight for me of Boom is that it doesn't just play band of gold.

32:48It does actually dig in exactly as you were just saying, Mark. And we'll play you some weird album track by family, right then following up by a very big hit. But Paul Roby who picks the music is very clever, making you feel as though you'll be... It's a treat to... Somebody is peaking it. Yeah. And this again goes back to FIP. Somebody is peaking that stuff. It's not just the obvious stuff. Because radio station computers correct me if I'm wrong. Have a habit of just peaking the obvious stuff. Don't they? Give me a loving spoonful record. It will be daydream. It just will. It was number one. It won't go down to, do you believe in magic or whatever? Because it's slightly too obscure. Is that right? Well, that is right. And a lot of that's to do with the way that playlists are done on the basis of what's known as auditorium testing. Yes. Where I don't know whether you've ever been to...

33:48I don't know, explain this. Oh, correct. This is all useful stuff. Okay. Well, if you're recruited to an auditorium test, you go and sit in a big room somewhere. And they play you some songs. And you have a little clicker. And you go either, yes, I like this. I don't, at some point in the song. So if it's something like angels by Robbie Williams, you probably get 98% clicks within the first two seconds. And they may not all be positive. They may be quite a few... Oh, my God, not this. But anyway, the point is if you're trying to check to a test an artist's catalog, you can't afford to play that many. So you give them maybe six ampersaults or seven, you know, a cheer and songs. Or whatever your radio station is. And then it's from the reactions to those that you've pre-chosen. Yes.

34:48That the playlist is compiled. So if it's the Beatles, for instance, they almost never would say, let's see what the public thinks of and your bird can sing. Yes. They would say, let's see what the public thinks of. Hey, Jude. Yeah. You know, and the long and winding road and a couple of others. And then that's it. So the computer has then been told by default. Don't choose any of this or the stuff we haven't tested. So radio, I'm right in saying, as the amount of music that we all can access gets wider and wider. And as we keep saying in the world in the days of streaming, we all have the same record collection of finger tips nowadays. While that gets broader, radio gets narrower. Radio absolutely gets narrower. That's counterintuitive, isn't it? Yeah. That's exactly what is happening. And the only place you will get the kind of things that we originally expected from,

35:52for instance, BBC Local Radio, like a jazz show or a folk show or, you know, all those niche music programs, the only place you'll get those now is from community stations, because the big boys just don't do that anymore. They're all right. I mean, they're looking at radio generally. Does it regard itself as threatened at the moment or is it quite... Oh, that's a buoyant. That's a very good question. You see, I think that what we haven't talked about is probably the most significant thing of that radio at the moment, which is that music is no longer the most important thing that people search for. What people seem to be moving in the direction of is speech and conversation. Like whether that's Joe Rogan or whether it's, you know, the rest is history. Yeah. Or the word podcast, you know, people are looking for intelligent conversation

36:54or influencers, whatever they are. You know, people who talk to them and with them and engage with their listeners. The music stations. There's a big Australian duo. You've probably heard of Kyle and Jacquiot. And they split up and lots of money was spent. And now Kyle's left radio all together, a bit like a mole-Ragen in England. And then he's gone off to set up his own thing called a mole-Ragen connect. Can you imagine? And, you know, so I think what's happening, and you can hear this on BBC stations with the constant talk about, you know, we're and we're on BBC sounds. You know, Jonas today at 1230 on Radio 4, or on BBC sounds anytime. What they mean by that is don't bother joining us on Radio 4 because that won't be here for much longer

37:57because we're not going to define ourselves by channels. Do find us on BBC sounds because that's where you can get anything you like. And we don't have to define it by these old channels. And predominantly for right reasons that's going to be speech. And that's where the growth is. So is it the same with the live circuit? You know, the spoken word tours really taken off. Even musicians going out talking about their books. I mean, if you go and see them play, then it's a question of, are they going to play the songs that I want to hear? And when they do start playing, I kind of got most of that information already. Is there a real revelation? We discussed this in the development of Word and Eurea. When we first started doing this as live events, it was some music and then we put a bit of a speech in just to live it up. And we soon found speech more popular than music. And because the thing about music is it far from the cliché view of songwriters throughout the ages.

38:57It doesn't bring people together at all. It drives them apart. It divides. It really divides them. Whereas speech tends to people find a kind of common issue or something that they like about it. And I thought, one thing that's pleased me about the podcast arena is a lot of it is about debate. And I don't want to sound all kind of faux academic here. But it is quite good hearing, Dominic and Tom talking about the Punic Wars. And hearing two different views about it. Because I've got so used to the standard radio thing, which is, hello, I'm an expert and I'm going to tell you everything that you need to know. We've all heard that programme a bit too often. What I quite like is the sort of thing that you guys actually pioneer, which is much more, hello, today we're going to talk about Elvis Costello, boring, clever, what do you think? And that kind of debate, I think, is much more something that you as a listener

40:01can throw yourself into than just somebody smouting, whether that's a speech person or indeed a DJ. Yeah. So going back to FIP and, you know, it's not the only overseas music thing that we can access nowadays. I mean, I've accessed things like KCRW. It is there in California, I think it is. Santa Monica. Well, people talk about that a long time ago, and they're going to show. I think there's still a hat called Morning Becomes a Let's Dispatch. Because, yeah, yeah, it's the most frightful title for any show. Morning Becomes a Let's Dispatch. If you're running six music, that's a bit of a challenge. Because over here is something that is slightly more pretentious than you are. And he's slightly more American than you are. And therefore it's going to take a little bit of your audiences. Now, I mean, do they regard these things as any kind of threat, Trevor? I don't think so. Because they're not big enough.

41:02Yeah, I'm not in those circles anymore, but I never heard of them when I was. I think that radio, particularly, even more so than television, is very inward looking as a medium. Do you agree with me? Yeah, it's much more interested in, you know, did we hit the pips? Yes. And BBC Radio is even more maneuvered looking for that. It's going to be playing the trails. Yeah, it's so tiresome now. Also, because of its falling over itself to be cool and diverse, and of course failing in every possible way, you know, it's like, you know, the teachers at the school say, I tell you what, we'll put on the show and the children will love it. And we'll address up as an equal in Sergeant Pepacock. I know. I know. The faces will light up.

42:02Well, I'll just go and mark. No, it's going to say, do you think there's an equivalent of fib radio in this code? Because I don't think it really is actually. I mean, six music has a certain amount of diversity, it's such a print again. It's a personality based and it's about the DJs you tend to relate to the person who's doing it, who appears to curate the music. Whereas the anonymous aspect of fib and the breadth of what they do. And the fact that it goes back 100 years is amazing, I think. I've never come across anything like it in the UK. So all hail fib. Oh, hail fib. It's obviously getting a huge international audience. I was really Robert Downey, Jr. was going on about how much he loved it the other day. And over the world, people are picking up at it. And feeling exactly what we are, which is you want to be in a little 2CV with a... I'm a bear in the middle. Well, I think we're driving a man. You should mention that, of course, you mentioned KCRW, the one in Santa Monica.

43:03That, like all other PBS stations, is going down the pan because they lost all their federal funding. Thank you, Donald Trump. So all of PBS is being decimated. So what would be the future of fib in a Marine Le Pen government? Wow. Who knows? I'll just leave you with this thought that ever since we first knew each other, and the three of us ever sat down to talk about the BBC, the BBC has been just about to go on a business. Yes. And it's still here, and it will outlast all of us. Don't you like it? It will. Conver us to its soul. Trevor, thank you very much indeed for your contribution. Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be invited. See you all soon. This is word in your ear. What are you planning to do with all these records? And that's pretty much it for this week, and so we should mention that we've done various podcasts that are out. One is the one with Natalie Merchant.

44:03We're really good, wasn't she talking about Cabinet of Wonder? Very good. It's first time I've ever interviewed anybody in her bedroom, I think, in front of her sewing. It was. She had a kind of rail full of costumes that she's remaking her wardrobe, I think. But that was her personal wardrobe, wasn't it? Yeah, well, I'm making costumes for the stage show. Well, she'd done that. She'd done that a while ago. And she said, it's very interesting. She said making costumes for kids quite easy, because they're all tubes. They're all shaped the same. The shape is different. Whereas adults are a different thing, a lot more demanding. But I thought it was very, very good to see that. She was really good. She was really good, very good. We did one with Dave Roundtree, which I think is our Dave Roundtree drummer of Blur. He was very good. He made a fast, I've always fascinated by the dynamic between band members. And he said that all four members of Blur, I didn't know this, maybe you did Dave. All four members of Blur had no brothers and one sister.

45:03Oh. So they all came from an incredibly similar backgrounds. They didn't have a brother, but they had a sister. So there was a real, I thought I was fascinating. He said, what an incredible connection that was. We talked to Craig and Charlie from the Proclaimers who were great. I'd like to know more about that. They talk about how they earn money from their songs being sung and played. I don't know if it was sung or played instead of... Well, they get PRS. They get PRS. So if you put it on... So this performance scene, when the public PRS is... ...performers rights, isn't it? That's right. And that means if it's... If your piece of music is sung in public by any number of people, you're entitled to something from it. So presumably if a load of people in a football state, it's saying something. But I wonder if you get paid, if the record's playing, obviously you're going to get played. If it's actually been played through the stadium PA, but if the crowd are just singing it,

46:03and it's being broadcast, I want to get the money for that. It's possible. Yeah, but you see, regardless of whether it's being broadcast or not, you still get it. Because all the... Every place like this has to be licensed for public performance of some kind. You know, and... I have a lot of some stadiums. They said they did very well out of it. And they said, then we talked about how much money Jack White might be making out of seven of them. Yes. They both kind of just rolled their eyes. Yeah, it's kind of matching it. So as that, we're going to talk to Sean Coleman. So we haven't talked to him yet, but we're talking to the soft news. That should be out sometime this week when you listen to this. And lastly, what we're going to end with, the reminder that if you're a top tier subscriber and supporter to Word and Your Year, you get a special event on your birthday. Should you begin to participate, which is ticking through your record collection, and showing us the things you like the most and have collected? Or else, simply being on the weekly podcast and tossing in some conversational gambit. And that is the case this week with someone whose name I actually don't know,

47:03but we always call him the mighty jailtex. Areas. And now it's time for Word and Your Year's birthday guest of the week. And here he is, the mighty jailtex. To give him his full name. The jailtex. Happy birthday. Very nice to see you. And thank you for being so supportive of our weekly quiz. Every Friday night we do an international live quiz in jailtex. He's there. And often it rumps home, actually, with the, with the coveted prize. But anyway, happy birthday. Thank you very much. How was it celebrated? Quite late. And then in the evening went to a cheeky little Italian to Werner in town. Very nice. Thank you, aren't they? It's got garlic and chili langosteans to start with and then. Oh nice. Spicy Italian sausage on e-shaped pasta to follow in a bottle of primitiveo. Oh, very good. You have a waiter dangling over your shoulder with an unfeasibly large pepper.

48:04Norbered pepper grime. Yes. It's your fuzz of the lady. Oh, good. So what are we doing? You're doing a frank mea or doing a sketch. You probably don't remember frank mea. Do you remember frank mea? I do. I remember doing a sketch. You used to watch, call my bluff all the time. Call my bluff. He used to do a sketch about going to an Italian restaurant and eating very garlicky food. And coming home and he's opening the door, bringing his key in door. And he noticed that the paint on the door started bubbling. It's just a rude, brilliant image. But anyway, so look, what have you, what have you got for us? You've got, you want to tell us something about World Magazine, is that right? Well, what I was, I was good. There was two. And I thought the more interesting one would be maybe a bit about the enemy. All right, go on. Go on. So in April 2002, their 50th anniversary. Yeah. They did a top 10 most greatest influential artists of all time. All right.

49:04And based on responses from the readers, letters, front covers, volumes, significance of features, dominance of year-end writers, polls. In other words, we've fixed it. Just people we really like and reflect well on the enemy. People are cool. So 10 artists. Go on. See how many you got in the top 10. Oh. See if you got the number one. Oh, what we've got to guess who those artists are. Yes. Okay. I'm going to, I'm trying to guess who, the editor of the anime was in 2002. I can't believe God. I mean, Danny Kelly gone by then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we can tick a few off, can't we? We can obviously tick off the Beatles. And I'm sure the Velvet Underground. Because it just would be in the DNA of the enemy. Is he correct in that? One of those two. Yeah, you see. So are the Beatles there? Are the Beatles are there? They're the Velvet Underground and not.

50:05That's interesting. Okay. Is James Brown there? James Brown there. Not in the top 10. That's extraordinary. Is Marvin Gaye in the top 10? No. No. No, wouldn't be. Well, wouldn't definitely wouldn't be able to read Bob Dylan's there. Is he? No, not in the top 10. What? So it's all going to be right right here. It's just coming. I've got the senseless things. No. Not even Cud. I've got a Cud. Aeroasis there. They are. I've seen stories Aeroasis there, but James Brown is not. I've seen some very, very simple things. I've seen a number six. Oh, come on. I've just put his album busy. Tell us. It readers the top 10. Go ahead. A number 10 public enemy. Right. A number nine, you two. Right. Eight poor Willa. Seven radio head. When did this come out again? 2002. Okay.

51:05Five or six whistles. Four David Bowie. Three in a stone roses. Two. Some banqued the Beatles. Right. A number one. God. Smith. There's Smith. There you go. That is the number 40. Most influential band of them. It is fundamentally wrongheaded. And, and you know, I'll fight anybody who says different. Because when people want to say something really great, it says really influential. No, it's totally different thing. Totally everything. Smith's not influential at all. Utterly, in ear sync, critic, they did what they did because they're those people. They can't sound like them. They can't sound like them. They can't be done. How you can possibly have public enemy number 10 and not have James Brown. He's just ridiculous. You don't mean. Because the old thing comes from James Brown. That's where he starts.

52:05See that? James Brown massively influential. And we even argue Beatles, not all that influential. Oddly, I don't feel that because you had to be really good to be influenced by the Beatles. Whereas I don't know. Beatles is great influence. So it's encouraging people to write their own songs. Yeah, but they never sing their own songs that sound like the Beatles. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, talking to the Beatles. Your main thing you want to talk about was you, you've had a one man experiment with the Beatles, haven't you, off late? Go on, next. Five years ago, when I first came on, I said to you that in my house, it was all singles. Listen to the radio. And that's pretty much the way I've been. I have never listened to a Beatles album other than one. And so I thought what I would do is listen to them in order. Write about them. And partly as a result of what you have said about the mistake is they, you know, people underestimate how much they did.

53:07But my preconception was I would enjoy the early ones. And I wouldn't enjoy the later ones. Now, I've only got as far as Sergeant Pepper. Which I had the most trepidation with because obviously it's been. Toppies, you know, the best album in so many polls and whatever. So what would I like it or not? Well, what I can't, you know, the early albums were full of mid tempo foot tapas, you know, by the popular beat combo, that sort of thing. And then you could hear things coming in like the Rick and back or fuzzy guitar. You know, what do you call it? Steel guitar. And after help, they were astonishing. I mean, the thing that I find amazing because my wife and I, we watched the eight part documentary.

54:08Get back. Be the judge. And the anthology. And they skipped over. Rubber, soul and revolver. You know, you know, you know, in about 10 minutes from what I remember in one episode, you know, and so that in my that that run of albums. Rubber, soul, revolver, Sergeant Pepper, three of the most extraordinary things I've heard. Right. And all done. They're very, they're very clear. Sproximities with each other. They're very short period of time. And that's the other thing. I think the thing the Sergeant Pepper is dead three months off before they recorded it to do their own stuff. So at the beginning of 67, that's what Wikipedia says. They may be lying, of course. Now, when they started in 66, didn't they? They come back. They draw me feels in penny lanes. So yeah, because they put out strawberry feels and penny lanes. And the record company said that we need a single. So we're just going to peel those off.

55:08And then they're going to be like, the record company said, we need a single. So we're just going to peel those off your new album, put them out now. Well, you think because they needed the Christmas, because they weren't going to have a Christmas album. That's the thing. So 96, 6, they stopped touring summer. And then they go in the studio and then they said, well, will we have an album for Christmas? They said, no, we won't be finished. So they say, okay, we'll put the single out. And that's why they put out the collection of Beatles' oldies for that Christmas, didn't they? To fill the gap where they'd always been the Beatles Christmas album. And then it came out in May the following year. So did you feel, I mean, I can remember it happening in real time, that the kind of jump between revolver and, and a hundred people was just intoxicating. It was just that nobody had heard anything like something. I'm trying to imagine what it would have been like for people to hear within you,

56:10without you for the first time. I mean, Fred, say we always just got the needle and skipped it. Not more exotic than I think that was a hundred. That was a hundred. No, the thing that I remember being absolutely astonished by was Lucy and the sky with Diamond. Because it didn't sound like anything you'd ever heard before. And also you have to remember at that time, 65, 67, new singles were coming out every week that did not sound like anything you'd ever heard before. And that applies to everybody, not just the Beatles, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, all those kind of people. Whereas, where Santa Beber kind of doubled that, because it felt like it had sounds you'd never heard before, they're phasing and all that kind of stuff, you know. It still sounds modern today. Yeah, it sounds, sorry.

57:10I mean, the thing that I'm going about with you, within you, without you and all those things, even that kind of, you know, Indian mystic kind of introspective thing, it's really up tempo. Nothing's slow on that record. You know what I mean? It's fast and it's all so hot. And it's curled, it has a pop song too with a melody as well, which is interesting because it's just set in an Indian context, but it's kind of western pop song in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There weren't doing album tracks where they were doing singles, and they just happened to be on an album. That's the way it turned out. Well, that's the thing that I took from those three albums, that any track on all of the albums could have been a single and would have been a huge hit. I can't imagine that there's ever been a band, a musical actor,

58:10that has had such a high success rate. Now, I'm just sure. So in terms of how many of those songs that they put out are genuinely deaf, the answer is pretty much none of them are genuinely deaf. There's none that you just can't listen to. So the question is now, Jill takes. Now that you've scaled Mount Sergeant Pepper, watch your next move. Is it, do you treat the magical mystery tour thing as an album? Or do you skip? Right, you don't. I skip it. You skip yellow submarine as well, fair enough. Yellow submarine did come out as an album until years later. The magical mystery tour, no, definitely not. You should go straight to the white album. And my god, you have a treat in store for me. My current absolute faith. Because there's so much of it. It's extraordinary. Because you think about Beatles albums, you don't want them to end. So that's the one to go for. Because there's twice as much. It's fantastic. Oh, well.

59:10And it was thanks to the stuff that you've both said and Dave has written about the Beatles that calls me to do it. And once I've done the Beatles, I don't know. I'm going to go on to several other classic albums and discover those. Oh, right. It's a pretty thing. Okay. Well, yeah, best of luck with that. And well, you're both those celebrations. No doubt, does that continue all weekend? Is it, you know, with the marching bands and, you know, punching? Yes. The red arrow is going to get a very, very huge firework display. Yes. Well, my birthday usually falls on a bank holiday weekend. And where I grew up in Suffolk, there used to be the red arrows used to come over the bank holiday Monday. And sometimes that would coincide on my birthday. They do that to pretend you're made to be in a minute. You believe I'm actually about to pay them, but it's worth it. You know, I know.

1:00:10Well, happy birthday. And thanks very much for your support. We very much appreciate it. And thanks for your sterling work and go through the Beatles catalog in that fashion. And we'll know to have you later on for the quiz, will we? Well, we'll be. Without doubt, this podcast was brought to you by The Word.