Songs about Books/Writers

firehorse · Apr 9, 2005

I started making a list of songs that were either inspired by literature, used literature as lyrics or were about books or writers. I'm sure there are more out there. I thought it would be cool if we could compile a list.

I've indicated where a song is inspired by or refers to a specific book or author (if it isn't obvious in the title

)

"My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" (Moxy Fruvous)
"Love in the Library" (Jimmy Buffett)
"Tell Your Story Walking" (Deb Talen - Motherless Brooklyn)
"Pablo Neruda" (Patty Larkin)
"Virginia Woolf" (Indigo Girls)
"Wrapped up in Books" (Belle and Sebastian)
"Hey Jack Kerouac" (10,000 Maniacs)
"Ghost World" (Aimee Man)
"Paperback Writer" (Beatles)
"My Book" (Beautiful South)
"Water to the Moon" (Bob Kemmis - To Kill a Mockingbird)
"Desolation Row" (Bruce Springsteen)
"Every Day I Write the Book" (Elvis Costello)
"House at Pooh Corner" (Loggins & Messina)
"The Lady of Shalott" (Loreena McKennitt - Tennyson)
"The Language of Birds" (Memphis - Keats)
"Green Eggs & Ham" (Moxy Fruvous - Dr. Seuss!)
"Einstein's Brain" (Nathan Caswell - book of the same name)
"All Good Books" (Paul Weller)
"Paranoid Android" (Radiohead)
"Sylvia Plath" (Ryan Adams)
"Pressed in a Book" (The Shins)
"The Book I Read" (Talking Heads)
"Tom Robinson" (Wide Mouth Mason)
"The Ground Beneath Her Feet" (U2 - Salman Rushdie)
"Ghost of Tom Joad" (Bruce Springsteen)
"Sun in my Mouth" (Bjork - e.e. cummings)

mommie4a · Apr 9, 2005

Who Wrote the Book of Love? (that's the song title, I don't know who did it - Big Bopper??)

Chacounne · Apr 9, 2005

Mommie,

It was The Monotones the did "The Book of Love?"

Yeah, even though I'm only 41, Buddy Holly is my guy, sigh!
Chacounne

gabbleandhiss · Apr 20, 2005

..

"Catcher In The Rye" (Guns N' Roses) -- this happens to be unreleased material, though.

"Atlas Shrugged" (Guns N' Roses) -- Again, this happens to be unreleased.

firehorse · Apr 20, 2005

Who knew Guns 'n Roses were so literary? It's always the hardest-rocking guys who have these little intellectual secrets

Smartest person - actor, musician, anybdy - I've ever interviewed was Greg Graffin, lead singer for Bad Religion. I'm sure they have literature-inspired songs, but I can't recall any offhand.

Maryn · Apr 20, 2005

Add these:

Blind Guardian song And Then There was Silence (Homer’s The Iliad)
Blind Guardian CD Nightfall in Middle-Earth (Tolkein)
Iron Maiden song Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Coleridge)
Iron Maiden song To Tame a Land (Frank Herbert’s Dune)
Jag Panzer CD Thane to the Throne (Shakespeare’s Macbeth)
Bruce Dickinson CD The Chemical Wedding (Blake)
Symphony X song The Odyssey (Homer)
Symphony X song King of Terrors (Poe)
Star One song Sandrider (Herbert’s Dune)
Cream song Tales of the Brave Ulysses (Homer)

Maryn

gabbleandhiss · Apr 20, 2005

..

Bad Rel . . . Off the top of my head, I can't think of any literary references within their songs. "Edward Teller" is the only name I recall Graffin singing.

The Clash sang about numerous pop culture icons. "Ghetto Defendant" features Allen Ginsburg. The song isn't about him, though.

firehorse · Apr 20, 2005

Speaking of Allen Ginsbug, They Might be Giants have a song called "I Should be Allowed to Think" based on "Howl." I know they have other literature-inspired songs, but... at the risk of sounding like a broken record (no pun intended), I can't recall.

gabbleandhiss · Apr 20, 2005

..

The Police -- "Don't Stand So Close To Me" (mentions Nabokov)
Elvis Costello -- "Everyday I Write The Book"
Red Hot Chili Peppers -- "Yertle The Turtle"

mudflat_marsh_hawk · Apr 21, 2005

Moon Over Bourbon Street - Sting (Vampire Lestat)

DreamWeaver · Apr 22, 2005

Back in the 60s, The Herd had a song about Orpheus leading (is it Eurydice?) out of Hades. I can't remember the title, but it began:

"Out of the land of shadow and darkness
We were returning toward the morning light..."

I think...it's been a while

.

Led Zeppelin is famous for Tolkien references, including an entire song titled "Misty Mountain Hop". "Ramble On" mentions Gollum and Mordor.

Glenn Frey -- Brave New World (from Huxley, title originally from Shakespeare)

Oh, of course! The Byrds, "Turn, Turn, Turn"--straight out of the Book of Ecclesiastes, I think?

Jefferson Airplane--Crown of Creation (from Re-Birth, by John Wyndham)

Who did "Just Like Romeo and Juliet"?

...and there's another one on the tip of my tongue that I'm forgetting...

Kris

mudflat_marsh_hawk · Apr 22, 2005

Stolen Child - music by Loreena McKennit. She sets the poem, written by Yeats to music. This is one of the most beautiful, haunting tunes I've heard.

Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland
Of sleuth wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats
There we've hid our fairy vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries

Chorus:
Come away oh human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far off furthest rosses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep

Chorus

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above glen car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams

Chorus

Away with us he's going
The solemned eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace unto his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest

Chorus

For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

Optimus · Apr 23, 2005

The song, "Century" by Live on their "Secret Samadhi" album mentions Aldous Huxley, if that counts.

Fractured_Chaos · Apr 23, 2005

Mudflat, if you like that one, you will absolutely love "The Highwayman" by Loreena McKinnett. Based on the poem by Alfred Noyes

And I cannot believe that THE literary-based group was forgotten. Alan Parsons Project.

"Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (Poe)
"I, Robot" (Asimov)

Complete Discography here

firehorse · Apr 23, 2005

Speaking of Loreena McKennitt, "The Lady of Shalott" is gorgeous (Tennyson, I think). I put it in my original post, but I think it got lost among all the other titles. Definitely worth another mention.

gabbleandhiss · May 3, 2005

I just remembered "Tom Sawyer" by Rush.

poetinahat · May 3, 2005

Nice list! Some more:

"Jocko Homo" by Devo (Ayn Rand reference: Are We Not Men?)
"Mere Pseud Mag Ed." by The Fall
"Neal Cassady" by The Washington Squares
"Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill (truly, truly awful)
"Cemetery Gates" by The Smiths ("Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine")
"Brave New World" by Public Image Ltd.

firehorse · May 4, 2005

poetinahat said:
"Cemetery Gates" by The Smiths ("Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine")

Is that Robert Smith's coming-out song, then?

poetinahat · May 5, 2005

firehorse said:
Is that Robert Smith's coming-out song, then?

Not a Robert Smith song, although that's perhaps what Morrissey and the lads had in mind when they chose their band name! I always thought of it as Morrissey's "The best artists don't have to be gay, but they certainly can't be straight" song....

Speaking of Wilde references (and why do they come up so often? Maybe Morrissey's right), here's one more:

"Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves", by Gavin Friday (ex-Virgin Prunes lead)
-- extract from Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Celeste · May 5, 2005

The Doors got their name from the book The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. His experimentation with drugs led to the writing of this book. Huxley interpreted his mescaline trips in terms of spiritual awareness and religious mysticism. Published in 1954, he explores the mind's remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness.

Most of The Doors songs are Jim Morrison's poetry just put to music.

The Beatles wrote a song about writing a book.

BEATLES - Paperback Writer

Paperback writer
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
Based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.
It's the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand.
His son is working for the Daily Mail,
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.
Paperback writer (writer, writer)
It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.
If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.
Paperback writer (writer, writer)
Paperback writer - paperback writer ...

That's all I can think of... :Shrug:

paprikapink · May 5, 2005

There's a very catchy version of that tune with the words changed to "Technical Writer." Any other former Sybase writers out there who remember Risa's lyrics?

-pk

poetinahat · May 5, 2005

Magazine's Philadelphia ("I'd have been Raskolnikov, but Mother Nature ripped me off")

firehorse · May 6, 2005

poetinahat said:
Not a Robert Smith song, although that's what Morrissey and the lads had in mind when they chose their band name!

:Smack:

Can you ever forgive me?

poetinahat · May 6, 2005

firehorse said:
:Smack:

Can you ever forgive me?

Hey, you combined my two patron saints.... you're an alchemist! :Guitar:

poetinahat · May 8, 2005

9 times! The green you see is my envy. I saw them once, in '85, when the 'Concert' album came out. They were on Friday night; the Smiths had played the previous night (couldn't get a ticket for love nor money *sigh*). Book of Love (remember them?) opened, and the Cure came on 2 1/2 hours late. They apologised, then played a brilliant set (including a claimed first-ever live rendition of 'Love Cats').

What a summer.

Songs about Books/Writers

Living the Dream

Mother of All Addictions

1% Irish, 99% blarney

Living the Dream

At Sea

1% Irish, 99% blarney

Living the Dream

1% Irish, 99% blarney

Shakespearean Fool

Distra-- Ooh! Shiny!

Living the Dream

1% Irish, 99% blarney

say it loud

Living the Dream

say it loud

Bored fanatic

say it loud

Living the Dream

say it loud

say it loud