Songs Inspired By Literature

February 11, 2003 10:39 AM

Songs Inspired by Literature. (found via quix's livejournal) A project to document songs inspired by a wide variety of literature, both modern and classic. Some were obvious or I already knew about (Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for one), but others were quite interesting.
posted by rich (36 comments total)

[This is Good]

But My Way being influenced by The Stranger? Can somebody elaborate?

Thanks, rich.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2003

This is good, and interesting. Some of the selections are a stretch - "Shardrach" by the Beasties isn't what I'd call "inspired" by the Bible - it does refer to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but only by name, and only as a clever homophonic metaphor for Ad Rock, Mike D and Adam Yauch.


They don't have a budget for fact-checkers; the songwriter for "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" wasn't Bono - it was: music - U2, lyrics Salman Rushdie.

But it's still cool all the same.
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:55 AM on February 11, 2003

Well some of Rush's work (whole of 2112, The Trees etc) is based on Ayn Rand...
posted by PenDevil at 11:04 AM on February 11, 2003

they're missing quite a few. i've already submitted two off the top of my head.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:05 AM on February 11, 2003

Very cool! But is a song "inspired" by literature when the lyrics are excerpts from the literature itself? Like, Loreena McKennitt's lovely "Lady of Shalott" (mispelled as "Shallot" on the list, which makes me laugh because heh, that's an onion) is the original verse set to music... that's not quite the same thing as "Fool on the Hill" being inspired by "Tom Jones."

My nitpickiness aside, it's a great link and a great cause. I may just have to nab one of those cds. Thanks for sharing it, rich.
posted by kittyb at 11:05 AM on February 11, 2003

Interesting link, and the nitpicks can be interesting. I suggested Poe's Haunted album which is sort of kind of a companion piece to House of Leaves but in a fairly tangental way (song titles reference things in the book, but the songs themselves pretty much stand on their own).
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:12 AM on February 11, 2003

likes to eat my friends and make no bones about it
I likes to eat my friends, I couldn't do without it
Ain't a man or poet, friend, I know just how you'll taste
Your limbs go sliding down my throat and never go to waste

The Police "Friends"
posted by KnitWit at 11:15 AM on February 11, 2003

Interesting how almost every Irish musician in that list has a song inspired by Yeats.
posted by gwint at 11:18 AM on February 11, 2003

"Shardrach" by the Beasties isn't what I'd call "inspired" by the Bible - it does refer to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,

But it gets mad props for the best lit-crit/hip-hop crossover rhyme ever:

Got more stories that J.D. Salinger
I hold the title and you are the challenger

There's on a slightly more obscure tip, Tsunami's "David Foster Wallace" an homage/imitation/sendup of the famed Infinite Jest author and I'm betting that Baby Lemonade's nifty single "Secret Goldfish" is a reference to Catcher In The Rye(it's one ofthe stories Holden's brother BD wrote before he went to Hollywood to become a prostitute, remember?)
posted by jonmc at 11:20 AM on February 11, 2003

No mention of the Cure? "Killing an Arab" is from The Stranger.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 11:24 AM on February 11, 2003

It's there IshmaelGraves. Just noticed that Venus in Furs by The Velvet Underground is missing though.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:25 AM on February 11, 2003

Cure songs are listed under Robert Smith.

I was tickled to death as a child to discover "Charlotte Sometimes" was cribbed nearly word for word from the book.
posted by padraigin at 11:27 AM on February 11, 2003

Oh, and there's Venus in Furs under Lou Reed.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:28 AM on February 11, 2003

"1984" appears to be a song inspiration/theme only slightly less popular than either "the journey" or "the big wheel".
posted by yhbc at 11:41 AM on February 11, 2003

Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come by Tom Waits.
posted by liam at 11:42 AM on February 11, 2003

How bout Down All the Days by Shane MacGowan?

or Lorca's Novena?
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:45 AM on February 11, 2003

Some of the selections are a stretch

Yeah, seems like it. Radiohead's Exit Music for a Film was written for the film version of Romeo+Juliet and it's on there. It's a tough call sometimes.

PinkShirtlessTail: nice call on Poe's album and House of Leaves. That was the first thing I thought of.
posted by dogwalker at 12:16 PM on February 11, 2003

Syd Barrett's Golden Hair is a James Joyce poem set to music. The Waterboys' Stolen Child is based on a Yeats poem.

I've also maintained over the eons that Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia used PK Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said as source material.
posted by hackly_fracture at 12:16 PM on February 11, 2003

Jethro Tull - "One Brown Mouse" - Robert Burns.
posted by Wulfgar! at 12:18 PM on February 11, 2003

eustacescrubb and jonmc: You could've mentioned the song which the Beastie Boys sample the most on that particular cut. The names Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are used in hilarious fashion on Sly and the Family Stone's "Loose Booty," which is included on a Rhino funk collections I have around here. The names are used casually, as if they sounded enough like"Boom Chockalcokalocka" to work. It's beyond safe to presume that Sly heard this in church, even if, as noted in "Somebody's Watching You," he knows that Sunday School don't make you cool forever.

Funny thing. I remember former NY Times wit Russell Baker writing in the late '80s or early '90s, one, that he couldn't use too many literary, Biblical or historical references in his columns anymore because people would write to say that they didn't get them. In this particular instance, he'd noted that he wanted to start with a reference to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but then thought better of it. But then he didn't explain to readers who Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were, exactly, even though he kept repeating the names over and over. The names just have a certain ring to them, when said together.
posted by raysmj at 12:18 PM on February 11, 2003

My favorite album based on the Bible is by Momus. It's called Circus Maximus. If you've never heard of it, take a look at the wonderful lyrics.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:32 PM on February 11, 2003

Just remembered another one: The Residents' Wormwood: Curious Stories from the Bible. Not their best work, but worth it for the line "He loves me like an eyeball/Loves a sharpened stick" though I don't think that's in the original source material.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:36 PM on February 11, 2003

Nice to see Buckner's The Hill getting props where props are due.

*ahem* "Escalator Broke Down," based loosely on Joseph McElroy's Lookout Cartridge and "Ghost of Ill Repute," last line lifted from Nabokov's Bend Sinister.
posted by mikrophon at 12:49 PM on February 11, 2003

Tommy Tutone Jenny (867-5309) "The White Pages"
posted by Frank Grimes at 12:55 PM on February 11, 2003

Great post, great linkage from others. Thanks.
posted by iconomy at 12:57 PM on February 11, 2003

"I Should Be Allowed to Think," by They Might Be Giants, takes lines from Ginsburg's Howl. Then there are all the Shakespeare/Hamlet songs mentioned in this thread.
posted by hippugeek at 1:20 PM on February 11, 2003

I actually bought their first benefit CD a few months ago. It's a solid selection of sings, and proceeds go to supporting literacy programs which is nice (aside - I had no idea that Aimee Mann's "Ghost World" was about the graphic novel until I read the CD liner notes)

I've been thinking about getting their second CD which is just now coming out. I probably will.
posted by willnot at 1:50 PM on February 11, 2003

Anyone understand how Frank Sinatra "My Way" is based on Albert Camus "The Stranger"?

Or Dylans all along the watchtower lyrics are from Frankenstein?

Always wondered about The Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil"
posted by stbalbach at 2:25 PM on February 11, 2003

he couldn't use too many literary, Biblical or historical references in his columns anymore because people would write to say that they didn't get them.

I talked to the chair of the Philosophy Dept. at my alma mater about this a while back. He had raised his oldest son completely outside of the church, and found that the boy was coming home asking "Who are Cane and Abel?" and "Who are David and Goliath?" Now, he's letting his youngest one go to Sunday school.
posted by mikrophon at 2:37 PM on February 11, 2003

Jerusalem, written by William Blake, performed by Charlotte Church.

Songs of Distant Earth, written and performed by Mike Oldfield, inspired by the book of the same name by Arthur C. Clarke.

Would you say that "I Am A Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel was inspired by John Donne? The "I am an island" refrain might be considered a rueful retort to "No man is an island". For that matter, would "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" be inspired by the Bible?
posted by joaquim at 4:36 PM on February 11, 2003

Lou Reed's Take a Walk on the Wild Side from Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Jagger/Richards' Jumping Jack Flash from Wm Blake.

There was a Bob Lind song from WB Yeats.

A Donovan tribute to writers.
posted by emf at 5:13 PM on February 11, 2003

stbalbach: Sympathy for the devil was apparently inspired by the Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I've heard All along the watchtower was inspired by one of the prophetic books from the Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, one of them.
posted by philfromhavelock at 5:17 PM on February 11, 2003

lou reed's the raven from the raven :)

ice cube's gangsta fairytale from ?

oh and bobby mcferrin's 23rd psalm from the bible!
posted by kliuless at 5:53 PM on February 11, 2003

Lou Reed's Take a Walk on the Wild Side from Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Actually, from Nelson Algren, but it's always good to see Hubert Selby Jr get props.
posted by jonmc at 6:10 PM on February 11, 2003

Dr@.
posted by emf at 6:53 PM on February 11, 2003

Let's not forget that zillions of reggae songs inspired by the Bible. In particular, Jah Shaka's "Revelation Songs" album (a whole concept album based on one book of the Bible), and the Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon", lifted whole from Psalm 137. And if the Beastie Boys' "Shadrach" is in, so is Lee "Scratch" Perry's "Kentucky Skank" for including the words "Shadrach Meshach Abdenego/ You've got to let the music flow."

Not reggae, but Genius/GZA's "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" probably belongs in there, as does the Orb's Koran-sampling "Earth (Gaia)". And of course, Brit space-rock pioneers Hawkwind apparently once employed Micheal Moorcock as a lyricist.

Also, although not mentioning any specific books, the Lowest of the Low "Rosy and Grey"

well i want to take a streetcar downtown
read henry miller and wander around
and drink some guinness from a tin
'cause my U.I. cheque has just come in

posted by arto at 2:32 AM on February 12, 2003