Classic books and music

[Paulclem]

Hi.
I got this idea from Mathor on the Harry Potter thread.

Do you know of any music that has taken it's inspiration from classic literature? I know little of clasical music, opera etc, so Im thinking of rock, pop etc. All suggestions welcome.

I have a couple of offerings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGb17_gTXho

Hawkwind's Steppenwolf from Herman Hesse's novel of the same name.

Bauhaus - an artpunk band from the 80's with Bela Lugosi's Dead

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

Inspired by the original cinematic Dracula - Bela Lugosi and Bram Stoker's Dracula

[mayneverhave]

For contemporary rock -

The album Ribbons and Sugar, by the band Gatsbys American Dream [sic], is based around Orwell's Animal Farm, along with the fairly obvious allusion to Fitzgerald in the band's name. Apparently they do not care for apostrophes.

[JCamilo]

There is some stuff from Iron Maiden such as Ancient Mariner, Dead Kennedys have a music with reference to 1984 in Fresh Fruit and Rooting vegetables.... Jefferson Airplane have White rabit but the most interesting I saw was a caipira (the brazilian country version) duo that adapted The Raven...

[Desolation]

Bob Dylan takes a lot of influence from Kerouac, Steinbeck, Rimbaud, and Anthon Checkov, as well as alluding to Fitzgerald and Joyce in lyrics. Bob claims that the album 'Blood on the Tracks' was based on a collection of short stories by Checkov, although the claim is widely disputed by fans.

David Bowie's album 'Diamond Dogs' is based on 1984.

Iggy Pop got the title of his album 'The Idiot' from the Dostoevsky novel of the same name.

Folksinger Phil Ochs set Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'The Bells' to music. Lou Reed also recorded an album of Poe's poetry made into songs.

The lyrics to Warren Zevon's song 'The Hula Hula Boys' were taken from Hunter S. Thompson's book The Curse of Lono.

[mal4mac]

Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs

Jefferson Airplane - White rabbit with amazing video splicing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HmJQyS8QVw

Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet

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

[Paulclem]

The Police did Don't Stand so Close to me, which references Nabokov's Lolita.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS1t6wHfalY

Kate Bush did Wuthering Heights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs

[Paulclem]

Sorry Mal4mac - I didn't see your post.

[kiki1982]

Karl Orff took old floky Latin poems and put them to music in his Carmina Burana

Tshaikowsky took Romeo and Juliet and also did a lot of fairytale figures I believe.

Wagner took the Nibelungenlied for his three operas.

and more

[Niamh]

there is a thread like this somewhere full of songs based on books...

[Paulclem]

I didn't know. I'm fairly new to the forum. I'll have to have a look.

[JBI]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdRZL_Q3ujs

Not even going to get into movie music, which is, often, an impression of the novel's atmosphere. Of course, classic music is loaded with it, but the list is too long (hundreds of Shakespeare Operas, for instance)

[Hank Stamper]

Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow

which is on

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future (Ballard short story)

awful record mind

[Niamh]

I know there is one menat to be based on frankenstien...

[Barbarous]

ah Bauhaus is one of my favorite bands, great example.

The Velvet Underground comes to mind with their 'Venus in Furs' song

The Smiths also have tons of songs in reference to numerous pieces of literature. 'Cemetry Gates' is probably the prime example. my favorite band, Minutemen have referenced Joyce's Ulysses more than once as well.

[Dark Lady]

The Crash Test Dummies' song 'Afternoons and Coffeespoons' is obviously a reference to The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.

[Dark Lady]

Also Blur's 'Tender' has the opening line, "Tender is the night." Possibly in reference to the novel by Fitzgerald or Ode to a Nightingale by Keats from which the novel takes its title?

[Desolation]

How did I forget 'White Rabbit' and Venus in Furs'? So obvious...

Also, the Doors had a song called 'End of the Night' inspired by a William Blake novel, and the novel by Celine Journey to the End of the Night.

[JCamilo]

Doors name is after Huxley, after Blake...
Rush Tom Swayer...
Colony by Joy Division is after Conrad...

[Paulclem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J7z2C9isfM

From Porgy and Bess. There are jazz versions too.

It Aint Necessarily so which is critical of the bible. I was looking for the Bronski Beat version which is the one I am familiar with, but I couldn't find it on youtube.
It has the funny rhyme:

Jonah he lived in a whale
He made his home-in
A fish's ab-do-men

[Zee.]

As I Lay Dying is the name of a band - I absolutely despise.

[Saladin]

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami , which is also the name of the fantastic Beatles song - Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

[Mathor]

Hi.
I got this idea from Mathor on the Harry Potter thread.

Do you know of any music that has taken it's inspiration from classic literature? I know little of clasical music, opera etc, so Im thinking of rock, pop etc. All suggestions welcome.

I have a couple of offerings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGb17_gTXho

Hawkwind's Steppenwolf from Herman Hesse's novel of the same name.

Bauhaus - an artpunk band from the 80's with Bela Lugosi's Dead

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

Inspired by the original cinematic Dracula - Bela Lugosi and Bram Stoker's Dracula

haha Bauhaus is NOT artpunk, but still I'm glad to see people out there who like Bauhaus. :)

A lot of artists use imagery etc they picked up from literature.

Crossing The Bar by Alfred Lord Tennyson, according to Morrissey was one of the biggest inspirations for the song "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" By The Smiths

"All Along The Watchtower" By Bob Dylan was inspired by Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

"2+2=5" by Radiohead inspired by George Orwell.

"Don Quixote" by Gordon Lightfoot

"Misty Mountain Hop" By Led Zeppelin, obviously refers to LOTR

I could come up with more but there are millions im sure.

[stlukesguild]

Wagner's Ring Cycle (consisting of four operas) was only very loosely based upon the Nibelungenlied. Wagner also brought in ideas drawn from other sources which he essentially built upon in creating his own librettos.

Classical music is laden with music rooted in literature... beginning with the most obvious: the Bible. Among some other obvious examples are Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra (rooted in Nietzsche's work). Almost all of Strauss' operas are rooted in exemplary literature including Wilde's Salome, and numerous plays by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Rossini's Barber of Seville are both rooted in Beaumarchais' plays. Franz Liszt composed numerous examples of "tone poems" or symphonic compositions with an intended "program" or narrative which were commonly rooted in great literature: Mazeppa, Orpheus, Prometheus, the Faust Symphony, etc... Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, Wolf, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Faure, Ravel, etc... have written hundreds of lieder or "art songs" based upon the poetry of Goethe, Hafiz, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Morike, etc... Paul Hindemith set Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", John Adams used one poem by Donne and two by Dickinson in his famous Harmonium, while Rachmaninoff set Poe's The Bells in his work of the same title. The reality is that there are endless connections between classical music and literature.

[Janine]

I believe there was another thread that pretty much addressed the same question. I wonder if the modes could merge the two. I will have to try and find it. I recall it from a few months back.

[Hank Stamper]

there are a bunch of promoters in London called Sancho Panza, always have a stage at Notting Hill

[Paulclem]

haha Bauhaus is NOT artpunk, but still I'm glad to see people out there who like Bauhaus.

I omitted to add that it was my label for them, as I'd forgotten, or quite possibly never knew, of what musical genre they came under. I just had them mentally classified as arty-post- punky - posey. I like their stuff, particularly Bela Lugosi's Dead, which I find satisfactorily hypnotic after a hard day's work.

[Paulclem]

The reality is that there are endless connections between classical music and literature.

It'd be great to listen to the appropriate music whilst you read a work don't you think? Or am I being a bit daft? My wife would probably say so.

I do like reading books at the time of year they are set in. I once read an Andy Mcnab thriller which just by chance happened to be split into date-day chapters on the days I was reading it. Fortunately, I didn't read anything significant into it. :wave:

[DarkStormyNight]

How about the Metallica instrumental, "Call of Ktulu"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWGOEWdV13M

The inspiration is the short story "Call of Cthulhu" by HP Lovecraft, one of the greatest horror writers of the pulp fiction era.

[Barbarous]

Also, the Doors had a song called 'End of the Night' inspired by a William Blake novel, and the novel by Celine Journey to the End of the Night.

no, no, the song has a few lines from a poem by Blake called 'Auguries of Innocence' which is brilliant.



I omitted to add that it was my label for them, as I'd forgotten, or quite possibly never knew, of what musical genre they came under. I just had them mentally classified as arty-post- punky - posey. I like their stuff, particularly Bela Lugosi's Dead, which I find satisfactorily hypnotic after a hard day's work.


haha Bauhaus is NOT artpunk, but still I'm glad to see people out there who like Bauhaus. :)

I always just consider them post-punk and I definitely don't consider their music to be 'Gothic' which some people seem to see them as...

[DesireKnowledge]

Avenged Sevenfold's Song.. Beast and the Harlot, is based of the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Chapters 16 and 17 if I am not mistaken.

Several Bands make reference to books like Dracula, and some of Edgar Allan Poe's Short stories in several of their songs. It seems to be a common theme in more Heavy rock, or metal music