Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness

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. Help us to keep the conversation going: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Mustn’t grumble! Songs with the essence of Englishness is an episode from Word Podcast by Word In Your Ear.

This episode is 57:29 long.

This episode was published on Mar 23, 2026.

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