songs with literary references

[kratsayra]

I'm guessing there's probably a thread about this somewhere already. If so, maybe someone can attach this to it or whatever?

Anyway, what are some of your favorite songs that have literary references in them?

Two of my favorites are Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" and Tori Amos' "Jamaica Inn." The Jamaica Inn song has not so much to do with the book, but I still like it - although maybe it does and I just don't remember the book well enough. And the Wuthering Heights song is just great - it conveys everything mysterious and haunting about the novel.

[papayahed]

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Anthrax - I am the Law is based on Judge Dredd - ok that may not be literature but they also do a few songs based on Stephen King books: Among the Living - The Stand, Skeleton in the Closet - Apt Pupil

[Virgil]

Tom Sawyer by Rush
Zepplin has a couple with Lord of the Rings references.

[Niamh]

Zepplin has a couple with Lord of the Rings references.

A couple?:lol: thats a bit of an understatement.:p

[Virgil]

A couple?:lol: thats a bit of an understatement.:p

:lol: Yeah, I know. I originally wrote "a bunch", but then i could only think of two so I reduced it to a couple.

[manolia]

I can think of Morgana Lefay's "To Isengard" :D
and Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle earth" (which is a whole album)
and Iced Earth's "Dark Saga" which is a "tribute" to a comic and not a book.

[kratsayra]

I can think of Morgana Lefay's "To Isengard" :D
and Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle earth" (which is a whole album)
and Iced Earth's "Dark Saga" which is a "tribute" to a comic and not a book.

my roommate listens to all kinds of heavy metal type stuff. Why do so many of these groups use literary and mythical references and themes? It's like this whole culture I'm totally unaware of.

[TheFifthElement]

Keane's song 'A Bad Dream' is based on the Yeats poem 'An Irish Airman Foresee's His Death'. It is an excellent poem, and a lovely song.

[manolia]

my roommate listens to all kinds of heavy metal type stuff. Why do so many of these groups use literary and mythical references and themes? It's like this whole culture I'm totally unaware of.

I don't know for every group, but Blind guardian were great fans of LOTR same goes with Iced Earth and Spawn ;)
Moreover, power metal groups often have heroic fantasy subjects in their songs so i guess LOTR and mythology serve as a good source

[RoCKiTcZa]

I think "Hate Me" of Blue October was based on the novel "For One More Day" by Mitch Albom, though I'm not so sure. Anyhow, it's one of my favorite songs and I've saved it on my computer with a five-star rating; every time I manage to get hold of a song I try to interpret it and that's how I happened to cook up this theory.

[Bakiryu]

Rosenrot by Rammstein is based on the story of Rosenrot of course (Rose red).

Moi Lolita by Alizee is about Lolita.

the band's name Hawthorne Heights is based on (William?) Hawthorne.

The song Anna-Molly by Incubus is based a bit on Poe's poem Annabel Lee.

kalinka by Yamboo is based on a Russian sort of skipping rhyme rhyme of the same name (it's also a song).

Phantom of the Opera by Nightwish (duh!).

Star Wars the saga begins by Weird Al Yankovich (he has over 10 of these).

Wow. that's a bunch. :lol:

[Redzeppelin]

My favorite lit reference is The Police's "Tea in the Sahara" off the Synchronicity album - which is Sting's borrowing of a story told by a character in Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky.

As well, there is also the Lolita reference made in "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

[samercury]

I think "Hate Me" of Blue October was based on the novel "For One More Day" by Mitch Albom, though I'm not so sure. Anyhow, it's one of my favorite songs and I've saved it on my computer with a five-star rating; every time I manage to get hold of a song I try to interpret it and that's how I happened to cook up this theory.

I love that song so much!

[lavendar1]

Metallica and Hemingway -- For Whom The Bell Tolls (there's another one, too, but can't think of it right now).

Metallica and the book Johnny Got His Gun-- One

[NikolaiI]

Some of you may have read Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I know I did, I vaguely remember it from childhood, and I was delighted when I heard "Rosemary" by the Grateful Dead, and I was sure almost at once it was based on the story.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HawRapp.html (if it's not on this site)

Rosemary - Grateful Dead

Swath of heaven, a breath of cologne
*her mirror* was a window she sat quite alone
All around her the garden grew
Scarlet and purple and crimson and blue

She came and she looked and at last went away
The garden was sealed when the flowers decayed
On the wall of the garden, a legend did say
"No one may come here, since no one may stay"

Also, ELO uses the phrase "Oh to sleep, perchance to dream" in the lyrics of a song "Mister Kingdom":

"...Oh, to sleep, per-chance to dream
To live again those joyous scenes
The laughter and the follies
That are locked inside my head..."

:) were just the first two that came to mind.

[BlueSkyGB]

Led Zeppelin and JRR Tolkien


The songs with direct references are "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Misty Mountain Hop," "Battle of Evermore," "Ramble On".

[AuntShecky]

"Prince Caspian" by Rusted Root.

[BibliophileTRJ]

Jimmy Buffett's "Prince of Tides"

[Koa]

I'm sure there was a thread or two like this, but god knows where.

I'm shocked no one mentioned "Killin an Arab" by the Cure. It's Camus' L'étranger.

[NikolaiI]

Led Zeppelin and JRR Tolkien


The songs with direct references are "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Misty Mountain Hop," "Battle of Evermore," "Ramble On".

Yes! Good job! I love them for that. :)


"Prince Caspian" by Rusted Root.


Jimmy Buffett's "Prince of Tides"

What are these two referencing to?


I'm sure there was a thread or two like this, but god knows where.

I'm shocked no one mentioned "Killin an Arab" by the Cure. It's Camus' L'étranger.

Might be better located in another forum :( I mean like general literature or something.

I remember reading that song/literature link somewhere.

[LadyWentworth]

John Lennon's song "Grow Old With Me". The first two lines are taken from the beginning of Browning's poem:

"Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be"


It is a simple, yet beautiful, song. Absolutely LOVE it!!

[BibliophileTRJ]

What are these two referencing to?


The song "Prince of Tides" by Jimmy Buffett is all about the novel "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy.

[NikolaiI]

Ah yes; how about

"Did you write the book of Love?" in the song American Pie by Don McClean :)

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

my roommate listens to all kinds of heavy metal type stuff. Why do so many of these groups use literary and mythical references and themes? It's like this whole culture I'm totally unaware of.

The two that come to my mind are the band As I Lay Dying, and the album "Leviathon" by Mastodon, which is based on Melville's Moby dick.

[Paulclem]

Steppenwolf by Hawkwind from Herman Hesse - a great song

[Ziggyman42]

I actually found this site as I was attempting to compile a playlist of such songs. Here's what I came up with from my collection:

Joni Mitchell, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" is an homage to Yeats' poem "The Second Coming"

"Take This Waltz" by Leonard Cohen is an interpretation of a poem by Frederico Garcia-Lorca called "Little Viennese Waltz".

"Crystabel" by Robert Earl Keen is a chilling retelling of Samuel Coolridge's poem of the same name.

And, although I thought I saw this Waterboys reference in someones signature, I'm not sure if it made it into the conversation. "Stolen Child" is a retelling of Yeats' poem of the same name.

Great discussion.

[OrphanPip]

Only one I can think of right now is "Venus in Furs" by Velvet Underground, inspired by Masoch's novel of the same name about a dominatrix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzaifhSw2c

[JuniperWoolf]

THE DOORS!

"Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun, nothing left to do but run run run let's run..."

Reference to The Golden Bough. Oh Jim, brilliant and a sex god. Dionysus incarnate. <3



Metallica and the book Johnny Got His Gun-- One

That song HORRIFIED me for months, seriously. I lost sleep. Whenever I walked past a dark room with the door open, I pictured him lying on his bed in there with that creepy frickin' mask on, morse coding "S.O.S., KILL ME," over and over and over. It REALLY affected me.

[MarkBastable]

And, although I thought I saw this Waterboys reference in someones signature, I'm not sure if it made it into the conversation. "Stolen Child" is a retelling of Yeats' poem of the same name.



And Brigadoon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadoon)is mentioned in The Whole of the Moon - though admittedly that's a reference to a musical based on a story with a customised title that may or not may be lifted from a poem. But - you know - close.

Rather closer to the thread, there's 1984 by David Bowie. (I suspect many other artists have referenced Orwell - The Eurythmics certainly did.) And Bowie has also referred to Kahlil Gibran.

Then there's White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.

Crash Test Dummies mention Eliot and reference Prufrock in Afternoons and Coffeespoons.

[Maximilianus]

Iron Maiden's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner's lyrics are basically the main stanzas behind the homonym poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Main stanzas because it's not the full poem, since it would be too long (I believe) to put to music. As long as it is, the song lasts about 11 minutes; something like a symphony.

Loreena McKennitt set The Lady of Shalott (Tennyson) to music for her 1991 album The Visit, and also on the same album there are Greensleeves (by king Henry VIII) and Cymbeline. The lyrics for Cymbeline are a fragment of such Shakespeare's play.