bend someone’s ear, to

To subject someone to a barrage of words. This somewhat slangy twentieth-century cliché comes from an older one, to bend one’s  ear  to  someone,  meaning  to  listen  or  pay  attention  to  someone. This usage dates from the late sixteenth century and frequently appears in poetry

(for example, John Milton, “Thine ears with favor bend,” 1648). Sometimes incline serves for bend, as in the Book of Common Prayer and in a well-known Protestant prayer response (“Hear our prayer, O Lord, incline thine ear to us,” by George Whelpton, 1897).