The only thing that rivals my love of books is my love of music. To truly lose myself in a great book, I like to create a playlist of songs which add to the mood and atmosphere of the story. A recent example would be The Girls by Emma Cline, the fantastic 60's drama which for me was sound-tracked by rambling hippie ragas and the tripped out psychedelia from the likes of the Grateful Dead and Country Joe & The Fish.
Even better, some great artists have taken literary influences to create brilliant songs that do justice to the genius of the work of the original authors. I've created a list of some of the best songs with allusions to books and their authors, which you'll find below.
Please note, some of these songs feature strong language, listen at your own discretion.
-Matt, Chief Editor and Bookshop Manager, Camberley.
1. The Ghost of Tom Joad - Bruce Springsteen
Tom Joad, the eponymous figure of Bruce Springsteen's 1995 album, is the protagonist of the classic John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath. In the novel, Joad is a recently released convict who, after witnessing the injustice suffered by his fellow man, takes up the fight against the power that inhibits personal freedoms. Springsteen uses Tom Joad as an allegory for those suffering at the hands of American Capitalism, paraphrasing his famous 'Wherever there's a...' speech in the final verses.
2. Auguries of Innocence - The Fugs
Published 36 years after his death, The Auguries of Innocence by poet William Blake was used by New York's literary freak-folk band The Fugs as the basis for one of their finest songs. Ed Sanders converted the romantic poem about the beauty of the smallest objects holding key to the universe's greater meaning, to an attack on the Reagan administrations housing schemes that lead to an increase in homelessness in America.
The Fugs, named after Norman Mailer's self-censoring of profanity in his novel The Naked and The Dead, were key figures in the American arts scene thanks to poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg's lyrical genius. Sanders, a student of classical Greek and Egyptian mythologies, also owned his own bookshop, The Peace-Eye Bookstore, which led to his counterculture kinship with beat legends like Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey. Read more in Ed's book, Fug You, an essential read for beat historians.
3. The Pigeon - Jeffrey Lewis
Another artist from the big apple, and heavily influenced by The Fugs before him, Jeffrey Lewis is a modern anti-folk hero. His lo-fi recordings are full of charm, often he performs live with self-drawn comics, including an extensive biography of the comic idol Alan Moore.
With this song, he takes Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, and transports it to the lower east side of New York, with a Pigeon taking the place of the titular bird. A hilarious experimental take on a classic, that removes all the tension and dread of the original with Yiddish slang and silly wordplay.
Jeffrey Lewis also introduced me to the author Flannery O'Connor with his fantastic Cult Boyfriend, which also references the work of J.G Ballard and little-known Canadian comic series Cerebus. For Jeffrey's own comic work, check out his self-published serial Fuff, and his contribution to The Beats: A Graphic History by Harvey Pekar.
4. Cemetery Gates - The Smiths
Not one to be outdone for literary merit, Cemetery Gates by The Smiths finds Morrissey at his most referential, name-checking Keats, Yeats and Oscar Wilde, and throwing in a quote from Shakespeare's Richard III for good measure. You'd be hard pressed to find a band more famous for their allusions than The Smiths, particularly the great Bard, with songs like Shakespeare's Sister and Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. Even one of their most famous songs, How Soon Is Now?, takes almost word for word inspiration from George Eliot's Middlemarch.
Morrissey has also published two books, his autobiography, which caused controversy in literary circles for it's publication as a Penguin Classic, and a fiction title, List of the Lost.
5. Red Right Hand - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Vengeance is a theme that extends through Nick Cave's huge body of work, and what is more vengeful than the hand of God? Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost is the story of the fall of Man from the grace of God in the Bible, told in over 10,000 lines of verse. His defining work has had a number of influences on the music of the Bad Seeds, most notably this song and Murder Ballad's opening track, Song of Joy, where blood is used to scrawl the phrase on a wall.
As well as his superb music, Nick Cave has produced a number of books. The neo-biblical And The Ass Saw The Angel was his first published work, followed by the bleakly comic Death of Bunny Munro (of which I happen to own 4 copies), and most recently The Sick Bag Song , an almost Milton-esque ode to the life of a touring musician.
As for literary references, several allusions to authors can be found in his songs, including Nabakov, Philip Larkin and Dylan Thomas in There She Goes My Beautiful World, William Morris' News from Nowhere becomes More News from Nowhere and The Lyre of Orpheus, a retelling of the classical Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
6. Venus in Furs - Velvet Underground
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the Austrian author from whom Masochism gets its name, published the bold erotic classic Venus In Furs in 1870. In 1963, Michael Leigh's The Velvet Underground was published, a pulp sexual-psychology paperback exploring paraphilias. In 1967, Lou Reed and John Cale combine these two books and create history.
Venus in Furs as a novel explores sexuality through female dominance and sadomasochism, with the character of Severin von Kusiemski taking Wanda von Dunajew as his master. The Velvet Underground tread the same waters, with sadomasochistic acts and the 'shiny boots of leather' of a dominatrix, and Severin all name-checked in this sultry art-rock staple.
7. The War of the Worlds (Full Album) - Jeff Wayne
A stunning combination of the fiercely intelligent work of H.G Wells and overblown prog-opera, Jeff Wayne's musical of War of the Worlds is a fantastic piece of literary invention. Packed with detail from the original novel, this concept album stays true to the themes of it's inspiration, taking direct quotes for lyrics, using all manner of aural mastery to present an oppressive and overpowering score that backs up the otherworldly feel of Wells sci-fi masterpiece.
I can't recommend this album enough to any fans of Science Fiction. It's like an audiobook collided with a Rush album. Richard Burton's narrator (an amalgamation of two of the book's characters) makes this an enthralling joy to listen to, his delivery every bit as intense and powerful as the Martian's heat rays. I defy anyone to not hear that deathly guitar-vocalisation sound in their head whenever the invader's weapons are mentioned in the original novel!
8. The End - The Doors
This entry is like a six degrees of literary separation. The Doors, named after Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, containing references to the Greek myth of Oedipus, and used to soundtrack the film Apocalypse Now, based on the classic Conrad story Heart of Darkness, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the acclaimed director of The Godfather, based on the book by Mario Puzo which was optioned as a film even before the manuscript was finished.
Jim Morrison may be the most poetic of vocalists, with many of The Door's songs starting as his surrealist verse. His published works can be found in the book The Lords & New Creatures, which are a must read for fans of psychedelic imagery.
9. White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
One of the most famous book related songs ever, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane takes you on a whirlwind journey through the mind-expanding LSD-scape of Alice in Wonderland. Every line is dripping with an acid-tinged look through the Lewis Carroll classic, taking the surreal nature of the original tale and backing it with a pulsating, relentless crawl to a crescendo of explosive flower-power.
10. Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
This barely needs an introduction. This art-pop belter from the excellent Kate Bush takes heavy inspiration from the classic Bronte novel of the same name. Bush narrates the song from the point of view of Catherine Earnshaw, with reliving the gothic romance with Heathcliff.
Kate Bush was inspired by the BBC adaptation of the novel, before reading the novel. After reading the book, and finding out she shared a birthday with author Emily Bronte, Kate set about writing the iconic hit.
Find a few more honourable mentions after the jump.
Honourable Mentions
Haunted - Poe
A darkly disjointed electro-pop piece inspired by the mind-bending, genre-destroying House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Genuinely haunts the listener in the same way the book does.
Off To The Races - Lana Del Rey
The first line of Lolita, "Light of my life, fire of my loins", features prominently in the chorus of this song. For more Humbert Humbert references, try Don't Stand So Close To Me by The Police.
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
Jeff Magnum wrote Holland, 1945 in reference to The Diary of Anne Frank, with several allusions to her experience hiding from the Nazis, and other Holocaust history, including The White Rose resistance group.
Billy Liar - The Decemberists
Inspired by the Keith Waterhouse novel Billy Liar, and the film based on it. Colin Meloy has also written his own children's fantasy series, Wildwood, illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis.
New Face in Hell - The Fall
Perhaps inspired by (an extremely obscure) crime novel from the 70s, A New Face In Hell by Roger Busby, or taken from the George Peppard film's English title. Either way, The Fall have literary cred for their name itself, from the great Albert Camus. (The other choice was The Outsiders, from another Camus classic.) Mark E. Smith is also a published author, 2009's Renegade, and cites his favourite authors as H.P Lovecraft, Raymond Chandler and Malcolm Lowry.
Dead Souls - Joy Division
Another classic post-punk band with a love of literature. Dead Souls is an intensely dark track, named after the Russian classic by Gogol. Not the only foray into the world of books for Curtis, Atrocity Exhibition from Closer is heavily inspired by the J.G Ballard collection of the same name.
2 + 2 = 5 - Radiohead
Orwell's equation from 1984 is an infamous example of false dogma, used by Winston Smith to examine the nature of truth and perception in the classic dystopian novel. Radiohead also took inspiration from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when naming the track Paranoid Android. And speaking of Orwell...
1984 - David Bowie
Enough said.
One - Metallica
This could just as easily have been For Whom The Bell Tolls, the Hemingway inspired track from the thrash legends second album, but I've chosen One for its close ties to the anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, which finds a soldier a prisoner in his own body.
Leviathan (Full Album) - Mastodon
I could have chosen just I Am Ahab for its obvious relation to the Melville novel Moby Dick, but decided to go with the whole album, which is basically a loose retelling of the story of the great white whale. As heavy as the book itself.
The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - Leonard Nimoy
I couldn't resist ending with a novelty track, inspired by the most famous fantasy novel of all time, The Hobbit. I don't think I can ever forgive Peter Jackson for NOT including it in his film adaptations. Three whole films, and no sign of this catchy Nimoy tune? A travesty.
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