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Songs that relate to books?

asherman13

asherman13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
914
0
SF Bay Area, CA
Can anybody think of songs that relate to specific events/characters in a book? This is derived from this thread, but now I'm kind of interested to see if anybody else can do this sort of thing, with any book.

Well?
 
Led Zeppelin + LotR

I did a project similar to the one in the thread you referenced when I was in 8th grade. I forget what the book was called, but it had to do with a kid leaving home. I remember having some Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty songs on my mix tape.
 
webcookie said:
Led Zeppelin + LotR

I did a project similar to the one in the thread you referenced when I was in 8th grade. I forget what the book was called, but it had to do with a kid leaving home. I remember having some Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty songs on my mix tape.
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LotR and Led Zeppelin? Which Led Zep. songs, and why?
 
Not exactly sure if it's what you mean, but the Roots have a record called Things Fall Apart that has some parallels to its namesake (the novel of the same name by Chinua Achebe).

Several of the songs on Use Your Illusion by Guns N' Roses are based on short stories. (In the videos, the stories are credited.)
 
Also, Jedi Mind Tricks's The Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological And Electro-Magnetic Manipulation Of Humans CD, is based on the book with the same title, but I can't think of the author is at the moment.
 
Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" album is based on The Diary of Anne Frank. In particular, songs like "Holland, 1945", "Oh Comely", "Ghost" and "Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2".

"Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles lifts some lines from The Tibetan Book Of The Dead.

John Cale put a couple of Dylan Thomas poems to music (ie "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night").

Hmm, that's all I can come up with after a cursory glance at my iTunes library.

:)
 
"Home at Last" - Steely Dan: "Odyssey"

"My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" - Moxy Fruvous - not so much about A book but about books.

"The Lady of Shallott" - Loreena McKennitt: "The Lady of Shallott"

"The Highwayman" - Loreena McKennitt: "The Highwayman"
 
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Don't Come Around Here No More has a video based on Alice In Wonderland (so has a recent Gwen Stefani song, but let's forget that, right?). But I'm not sure if Alice (or any other character) is mentioned in the song.

Eerily enough that's the only one I can come up with at the moment... :eek:
 
Strunk & White was made into an opera.
Hm. There is "White Rabbit" from Jefferson Airplane. Iron Maiden, "To Tame A Land", from Dune. And Kate Bush, "Wuthering Heights."
 
OnceUGoMac said:
The Cure: The Killing of an Arab: from the novel A Stranger in a Strange Land.
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I think Killing an Arab has a literary source, but I don't think it has anything to do with Heinlein's novel. At least, there's no major connection I can see.... Of course, the themes of estrangement are similar. But this character is estranged because of what he does... Heinlein's Valentine is estranged because of what he knows, I think.
 
The Police - "Don't Stand So Close to Me"

"Loose talk in the classroom
To hurt they try and try
Strong words in the staffroom
The accusations fly
It's no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabokov"

Refers to Vladimir Nabakov's "Lolita".

Hmmm, I haven't listened to The Police in a while..... I always forget how good that band was. Seemed like the more they fought amongst each other, the better the music.
 
neocell said:
Misty Mountain Hop
The Battle of Evermore
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Yeah, I'll admit I'm one of I think four people that wasn't into the Hobbit/LOTR movies when they came out, but after I saw the movie, I finally understood the lyric from "Ramble On " on "Led Zeppelin II" -

"T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her, her, her....yeah. "
 
a lot of Blind Guardian's music is inspired by Tolkien's works..

for instance they have a song called Lord of the Rings that's essentially a musical version of the poem at the beginning of the LoTR books.

they're also a wicked good band.
 
zach said:
a lot of Blind Guardian's music is inspired by Tolkien's works..

for instance they have a song called Lord of the Rings that's essentially a musical version of the poem at the beginning of the LoTR books.

they're also a wicked good band.
Click to expand...


I LOVE BLIND GUARDIAN!

Rush's "Xanadu" is based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan". A lot of their songs are very SciFi, so I wouldn't be surprised if their songs had some relation to any SciFi books.

Metallica's "Call of Ktulu" (an instrumental), is 'based' on HP Lovecraft's "Call of Chtulhu". The song "The Thing That Should Not Be" has references to many of HP Lovecraft's books, such as "Call of Chtulhu", ""Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Nameless City", and probably others which relate to "Chtulu."

To complete Led Zeppelin: Misty Mountain Hop, Battle of Evermore, Ramble On. Other songs may have indirect references (however, Stairway to Heaven is officially off the list. Plant or Page said StH is not related to LotR).
 
Jaffa Cake said:
And, if you listen to some people, there's Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon and The Wizard of Oz. :p
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I've read that you can sync up Rush's "2112" and the original "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", too. :)
 
Bruce Springsteen, "The Ghost of Tom Joad". -> John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath". (dt: Die Früchte des Zorns; there's a nice version by Rage Against The Machine on the Renegades-Album.)

Züri West, "Dr Arturo Bandini un i". -> John Fante, "Ask the Dust". (dt: Ich - Arturo Bandini).
 
Well, it's not a song, but the term "Heavy Metal" was actually coined by the Beat writer William S. Burroughs (author of Naked Lunch).

From Wikipedia:

"An early use of the term in modern popular culture was by counter-culture writer William S. Burroughs. In his 1962 novel The Soft Machine, he introduces the character "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". His next novel in 1964 Nova Express, develops this theme further, heavy metal being a metaphor for addictive drugs:

"With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms - Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes - And the Insect People of Minraud with metal music..."

Burroughs, William S, (1964). Nova Express. New York: Grove Press. p. 112

Interesting tidbit....

ND
 
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