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Songs that are about books



Lady Whistledown

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
47,641
Does Romeo & Juliet count as a book?

(Dire Straits).
 




Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
62,734
The Fatherland




















Thunder Bolt

Silly old bat
By the rivers of Babylon Boney M - from Book of Psalms

It's an intrumental but The Cruel Sea by the Dakotas.
 


Stato

Well-known member
Dec 21, 2011
7,375
As well as ‘Killing An Arab’ coming from ‘L’Estranger/The Outsider’ by Albert Camus, The Cure’s ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ comes from Penelope Farmer’s children’s novel.

Bang Bang Machine’s Peel Festive 50 winner ‘Geek Love’ is inspired by Katherine Dunne’s fantastic cult novel of the same name.

The title track from Lloyd Cole & The Commotions’ ‘Rattlesnakes’ comes from ‘Play It As It Lays’ by Joan Didion.

As well as ‘Should the Bible be Banned?’ McCarthy also did ‘The Well of Loneliness’, the title of Radclyffe Hall’s 1920s lesbian novel.

Divine Comedy’s ‘Something for the Weekend’ has the line: ‘She said there’s something in the woodshed,‘ which is a refrain from Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons

Pink Floyd: ‘Chapter 24’ is an interpretation of ‘The I Ching / Book of Changes’. It's on the album ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, who's title is from Chapter 7 of Kenneth Grahame’s ‘Wind In The Willows’)

The title of Squeeze’s ‘masterpiece comes from Nell Dunn’s novel ‘Up the Junction’

And the other way around, Brett Easton Ellis’s novel ‘Less Than Zero’, takes its title from the Elvis Costello song.
 












Stato

Well-known member
Dec 21, 2011
7,375
I was Spotifying some of the Kinks' poorly received post sixties stuff at the weekend and came across a song called 'Where Are They Now' which mentions the likes of John Braine and Alan Sillitoe and references characters from 'Room at the Top' and 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.'
 


Cosmic Joker

The Motorik
Apr 14, 2010
570
Chichester
Unsurprisingly, Hawkwind have drawn inspiration from a range of Sci-Fi books over the past.
High Rise from the JG Ballard novel of the same name
Steppenwolf from Hermann Hesse
Robot is based on the Three laws of Robotics from Isaac Asimov's I Robot novel and subsequent further robot novels.
And obviously given the close friendship and association with the author within the Notting Hill/Portobello Rd scene, Hawkwind have done two albums of Michael Moorcock inspired songs. Warrior on the Edge of Time is based on his Erekose the Eternal Champion series whilst the later Chronicle of the Black Sword is based on the related Elric of Melnibone series of fantasy novels.
There will undoubtedly be more.
 












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