Deck the halls with beers and Stoli! The nutcracker of scrutiny was applied to this week’s noisettes of news and the following discussed over a glass of port …

... are a lot of new song catalogues just blogs set to music?

… can any actor be convincing playing someone really famous?

… Robbie Williams’ Better Man: it’s the way forward! Who can his CGI’s monkey play next?

… why no-one writes songs with opinions anymore.

… Lola Young’s ‘charming’ press release.

... when Elvis met Nixon (and was “crackling with drugs”).

… why we miss the one pound note!

… Dickens, Bing Crosby and why the concept of Christmas is rooted in the past.

… is part of the joy of Powerpop that it’s doomed to commercial failure? Big Star, the Shoes – perfect; Blondie – too successful!

… St James Infirmary, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Stormy Monday – and other great songs about money - ‘These shabby shoes I'm wearing all the time/ Is full of holes and nails and brother if I stepped on a worn out dime/ I bet a nickel I could tell you if it was heads or tails’.

… the return of “a bankroll big enough to choke a donkey”.

… plus Hank Williams, Brenda Lee, Tom Waits and birthday guest Kevin Walsh wonders ‘what’s the classic Powerpop look and sound and who are its standard-bearers?’

Happy Christmas, all! … from us and ‘Bob Dylan’:

https://x.com/FallonTonight/status/1597460887446900736?lang=en

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The tremendous Bill Bailey is staging “a magical, musical mystery tour of the mind, along with other pressing matters” for 42 nights in London from December 28, a celebration of what makes us human in an age threatened by AI. There'll be “a laser harp”. There’ll be electronic drum balls played by audience members. There'll be extracts from Kraftwerk’s lost album of children’s songs. He talks to Mark here about the first live entertainment he ever saw and first shows he played himself, which happily involves …

… “a lightbulb moment”, James Robertson Justice breaking the fourth wall, the genius of Les Dawson’s deadpan piano playing, OMD, the Cure, the Banshees, how TikTok changed song writing, Jean-Jacques Burnel whacking a skinhead with his bass, A Flock of Seagulls, the Undertones, seeing John Hegley’s mandolin-driven comedy act and thinking “I could do that”, Victor Borge and the invention of the disco bass line by a 17th century German composer.

Order tickets for Bill Bailey’s Thoughtifier show here:

https://www.billbailey.co.uk/live

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The 17 year-old Al Stewart played electric guitar in a dance band in Bournemouth in 1963. When he borrowed an acoustic and sang Masters Of War in the break, he heard the sweet sound of applause. The next night he played three Dylan songs and sensed which way the wind was blowing. He talks here about moving to London, playing at Bunjies and becoming the compere at Les Cousins as his now 60-year career began to lift off. And about his Farewell Tour which kicks off in the UK in October 2025, a combination of songs and story-telling coloured by two great heroes, Peter Ustinov and Alistair Cooke.

This cracking exchange steers by way of Bert Jansch, Bob Dylan, Helen of Troy, Stalin, Hitler and the Battle of Moscow, the Weeley Festival of 1971, the three songs he always plays, the young Cat Stevens and what he told Paul Simon he should do with the just-composed Homeward Bound.

Order Al Stewart tickets here:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/al-stewart

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

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