Writer Alan Sillitoe died today at the age of 82. Although he considered himself primarily a poet, Sillitoe also produced novels, short stories, screenplays, stage plays, and children's books. He is best remembered for his first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
, published in 1958, and his 1959 short story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
. Both of these works have inspired popular music.Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, about a hard-drinking, womanizing British factory worker, captured the frustrations of the working class in post-War Britain and helped get Sillitoe lumped into the "angry young man" school of British writers, a label Sillitoe resisted. The book, and the 1960 film version
starring Albert Finney, had a major influence on Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
, the debut album by the Arctic Monkeys, released in 2006. The album's title comes from a line in the book, when the protagonist Arthur Seaton thinks to himself: "I'm me and nobody else, and whatever people think I am or say I am, that's what I'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me." Alex Turner, the primary songwriter for the band, told the British tabloid The Sun: "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is what the album is about," adding that "songs including The View From The Afternoon
, Dancing Shoes
, Still Take You Home 
, and From The Ritz To The Rubble
all cover that bit of the weekend and feature the same character" [via Yahoo! Music News].In The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Sillitoe portrays Colin, a rebellious working-class youth who is sent to Ruxton Towers, a prison school for delinquents. A talented distance runner, Colin is offered the chance of early release if he will represent the school in a cross-country race. In the end, Colin--well ahead of the pack and certain to win--deliberately stops short of the finish line as an act of defiance against the authority figures he detests. The story inspired Iron Maiden's song The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner
, from their 1986 album Somewhere in Time
: You reach the final stretch/Ideals are just a trace/You feel like throwing the race/It's all so futile. Sillitoe's story also influenced the Belle and Sebastian song The Loneliness Of A Middle Distance Runner
, from their 2005 album Push Barman to Open Old Wounds
, particularly the lines: Have you seen The Loneliness of A Middle Distance Runner?/When he stops the race and looks around. Sillitoe's story also provides the title for recordings by Belinda Gillett
, Gunnar Mossblad
, and the Angelic Upstarts
, as well as for albums by saxophonist Dave Liebman
and the band The Lost Society
. In addition, the school in the story provided the name for the band Ruxton Towers. Also noteworthy: A video by internet musician Jacob Ruefer for his song Not Too Late, which features clips from the 1962 film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
--including the story's climax.As for Alan Sillitoe's own musical preferences? Last year when he appeared on the BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, Sillitoe provided this list of recordings he'd want to have with him if he were a castaway:
Mack The Knife
, Bobby Darin Ol' Man River
, Paul Robeson The Battle of Agincourt
, Sir Henry Walton (from the 1946 film Henry V
)"Seventeen Come Sunday," Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley
Le Ca Ira
, Édith Piaf "Let's Slip Away," Cleo Laine
Chopin: Prelude in D flat major "The Raindrop,"
Arthur RubinsteinWhere'er You Walk, from Handel's Semele
, Bryn Terfel
. For all those publishing folks who are now grounded and will not be able to attend the 
, was inspired by Malcolm Lowry's semi-autobiographical novel 
, published in 1947. The book focuses on an alcoholic British ex-consul in Mexico and a group of characters that includes the consul's ex-wife, his half-brother, and his childhood friend. The action takes place in 1938 on the Mexican Day of the Dead (November 2nd) in a small Mexican town dominated by two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtachihuatel (or Ixta). The lyrics portray the debauched consul--He's been going too far in his drinking/Running a little too fat/Eyelids becoming so heavy, sadly/But he tries not to sleep while he's living beneath the volcano--and there's also a reference to the date: It's the Festival of Death. A band called the Young Fresh Fellows also did a song inspired by the novel, 
, from their 1987 album 
. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on the main character's drinking--And the storm clouds hide the volcanoes/But they shall never find me here/Where I torture myself with the memories/That stay clear through tequila and beer--and again there is an allusion to the date: Now I drink to Death on this Day of the Dead/And only wish it could be quickly done.
spun a fictional tale around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that destroyed the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. No less a figure than John Philip Sousa--the March King himself--was so taken with the book that he composed an entire suite around it in 1893. In the book 
, Neil Harris writes: "Sousa's Last Days of Pompeii drew on Bulwer-Lytton's novel, and the program notes included lengthy quotations. Indeed, these descriptive numbers were all accompanied by extended program comments enabling the audience to follow the narrative." The final movement of the suite, 
, is a dramatic musical evocation of the volcanic eruption. According to 
, available on his 1992 
, portrays some citizens of the doomed city who, foreseeing their fate, imagine how they might have lived their lives differently by doing the things they'd always meant to do: And when Vesuvio came to call/Arrivaderci I'd've had a ball [I'd've had it all]. A song on Nova Mob's 1991 album 
borrows Bulwer-Lytton's title, but takes the point of view of Pliny the Younger, who left the only known written eyewitness account of the destruction of Pompeii. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, a Roman naval commander, died in the eruption. Woke up, I got dressed and went to Herculaneum/With no idea what the future deemed it would become/My uncle, he is an admiral, as for me I have no trade/My name is Pliny and these are observations I have made/These are the last days in the city of Pompeii.... 
in Led Zeppelin's songs [see our earlier post about 
can be found on the 2003 compilation 
by Kevin Pearce and James Prior, and another Tolkien-inspired track of that title, this one by Torog, can be found on the 2008 dance/electronica compilation 
. Swiss pianist and composer Sylvia Courvoisier recorded a piece called 
, which appears on the 2003 album 
. 
on their 1998 album 
.
features not one but two volcanoes: the dormant volcano Snæfellsjökull (in Iceland, no less), where Verne's heroes begin their trek, and Stromboli in Italy, where they emerge at the end of their journey. Rick Wakeman's 1974 concept album 
retells Verne's story using a combination of music, song, and narration. In the album's first part, 
, the lyrics describe the beginning of the excursion: Roped as one for safety through the long descent/Into the crater of volcanic rock they went. In the final part, 
, Wakeman's narration describes the conclusion of the journey: "Trapped in the shaft of an active volcano they rose through the ages of man to be finally expelled out on a mountainside riddled with tiny lava streams. Their journey was completed and they found themselves 3,000 miles from their original starting point in Iceland. They had entered by one volcano and they had come out another." Or, in one caldera and out the other, as it were. [In 1999 Wakeman took it upon himself to produce the sequel that Jules Verne never wrote, with an album called 
.]
