Classics Rock!

Christmas Bells/John Gorka

2011-12-23T18:53:00.005-05:00

John Gorka's 1990 song "Christmas Bells," available on the Windham Hill compilation A Winter's Solstice III, is based on the poem of the same name, written on Christmas Day in 1864 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and published in February 1865. The poem is available in many Longfellow collections, including Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings

Brought low by the death of his wife and the wounding of his son in the Civil War, Longfellow welcomes the bells of Christmas and their message of peace on earth in the poem, but then despairs that there is no peace on earth: Hate is strong/And mocks the song/Of peace on earth, good-will to men. In the end, the bells win him over:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Longfellow's "Christmas Bells" consists of seven stanzas, including some that make specific reference to the Civil War. Gorka uses four of the stanzas in his song, which is just one of several musical arrangements of Longfellow's poem that have been done over the years.

The story behind the writing of the poem is told in the 2009 book I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by Lloyd & Karmel Newell, and illustrated by Dan Burr.

Merry Christmas!

The Classics Rock! Halloween Playlist

2011-10-29T18:04:00.003-04:00

If you're looking for something besides The Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, and Thriller to provide the soundtrack for your Halloween, then the songs below can help get you started. Some are obvious, others probably less familiar, but each one is appropriate to the season, either for exploring spooky subject matter or creating an eerie mood. In keeping with our mission at Classics Rock!, some even have literary sources, as noted below. We'd love to see this list grow--suggestions are welcome!

This Is Halloween - Danny Elfman

Theme from Halloween - John Carpenter

The Voice - The Alan Parsons Project

One Stage Before - Al Stewart

Fear Of The Unknown - Martin Briley

Moon Over Bourbon Street - Sting (literary source)

Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revivial

Ave Satani (Theme from The Omen) - Jerry Goldsmith

(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

Eye Of The Zombie - John Fogerty

The Legend Of Wooley Swamp - The Charlie Daniels Band

Life In Dark Water - Al Stewart

Walking With A Ghost - Tegan and Sara

Hurry Sundown - The Outlaws

The Raven - The Alan Parsons Project (literary source)

The Ghost Who Walks - Karen Elson

Charlotte Corday - Al Stewart

Invisible Man - Joe Jackson

Curse Of the Mummy's Tomb - World Party

Miss Ghost - Don Henley

Spooky - The Classics IV

Season Of The Witch - Donovan

Witchy Woman - The Eagles

Ghost in the Attic - Dave Nachmanoff

Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo

Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive - Men at Work (literary source)

Goodnight Moon - Shivaree

Tombstone - Suzanne Vega

Moondance - Van Morrison

Werewolves Of London - Warren Zevon

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - David Bowie

Scentless Apprentice - Nirvana (literary source)

The Resurrectionist - Pet Shop Boys (literary source)

At The Mountains Of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft (literary source)

Happy Halloween!

The Time Machine/Alan Parsons

2011-10-08T15:19:00.001-04:00

Alan Parsons' third solo effort following the dissolution of The Alan Parsons Project was called The Time Machine, released in 1999. Clearly Parsons was referencing H.G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, but the fan site The Avenue says that "while it was inspired by the H.G. Wells story of the same name, the album is not a musical interpretation of his book. Instead, the album looks at time travel as a generic subject, as well as looking into other aspects of time and space."

Parsons was reportedly interested in exploring the theme of time travel on an album since the 1970s and wanted to devote the second Alan Parsons Project release to that concept. At the time his partner, the late Eric Woolfson, was more interested in the robot stories of Isaac Asimov, and the result was the album I Robot. As discussed previously in these pages, that album is very loosely associated with Asimov's book I, Robot (the placement of the comma is key).

Images on the cover of The Time Machine make sly references to time travel--for example, a photo of a London police box suggests the time-traveling TARDIS of Doctor Who fame, and a picture of a Delorean refers to the time machine of choice in the Back to the Future films. The tracks on the album have titles such as "No Future in the Past" and "Far Ago and Long Away," and the song "Press Rewind" explores the idea of going back and doing your life over. The title of an instrumental called "Rubber Universe" refers to astronmer Edwin Hubble's theory that since galaxies are moving away from us, the universe must be stretching like an elastic band. Another instrumental, "Temporalia," interpolates physicist Frank Close talking about how looking at the stars is, in effect, looking back in time. (Interestingly, the audio of Close is taken from a documentary called The Rubber Universe, which aired on the British television show Equinox. It was directed by graphic designer Storm Thorgerson, who also designed the album cover art for The Time Machine. Also worthy of note is the band Rubber Universe, which has associations with The Alan Parson Project.)

The song that most closely captures the spirit of H.G. Wells's novel is "Out of the Blue," which seems to be specifically about a time-traveler:

Out of the blue
I come sailing
Through the years
Through the years
What can I do?
Now that I've seen
All our hopes
All of our fears

This "man from out of the blue" also states: I travel far/Yet no distance/I'm still here/Always here--as if he does not move through space at all, but only through time.

One other reference to Wells may be found on the Japanese release of The Time Machine, where the title tracks (Parts 1 and 2) were redubbed "H.G. Force."

The Time Machine (Kindle Edition)
I, Robot (Kindle Edition)

For Winnie-the-Pooh's 90th Birthday: House at Pooh Corner/Loggins & Messina, and more

2011-08-18T02:11:00.001-04:00

This Sunday, August 21st, is the 90th birthday of A.A. Milne's beloved children's character Edward Bear, better known as Winnie-the-Pooh. Happy birthday, Pooh! Or as the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood might put it, hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy.

But how can Pooh be 90? The first Pooh book, Winnie-the-Pooh, was published in 1926. That would make him a mere 85, wouldn't it? It turns out that Pooh's birthday is not calculated from the date of his first publication, but from internal evidence found in The House at Pooh Corner: Pooh was presented to Milne's son Christopher Robin on the occasion of the boy's first birthday, on August 21st, 1921. So Christopher Robin's birthday became Pooh's.

Pooh has inspired his share of songs--and not all of them are for the kiddies. The obvious choice to begin with is House At Pooh Corner, written by Kenny Loggins. The song was originally recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band for their 1970 album Uncle Charlie His Dog Teddy. Band member Jimmy Ibbotson reportedly suffered from polio as a child and spent much of the time reading. The works of A.A. Milne were particular favorites, so he was eager to record the song. But it gained real popularity after it appeared on Loggins & Messina's 1971 album Sittin in. It can also be found on their greatest hits album Best: Loggins & Messina - Sittin in Again. The lyrics describe Pooh going about various Pooh-ish activities--counting bees, chasing clouds, getting a honey jar stuck on his nose--with the help of his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, including Christopher Robin, Owl, and Eeyore (what, no Tigger?). The subtext is a wistful wish to return to a lost childhood, an aspect that was emphasized when Loggins revised the song as Return To Pooh Corner, which appears on a 1994 album of the same name. Another follow up album, More Songs From Pooh Corner, in 2000, includes Loggins' song Your Heart Will Lead You Home, which served as the theme to Disney's animated film The Tigger Movie.

In 1970 Dutch composer Willem Frederik Bon wrote an orchestral score called To Catch a Heffalump, after the mysterious and elusive creatures that bedevil Pooh and Piglet.

Now things really do get nitty gritty. Arab Strap's song Piglet, from their 1998 album Philophobia, features a couple getting ready to go out clubbing. While the woman is in the shower, her boyfriend lets curiosity get the better of him: I'd always planned to have a look/in your special Winnie the Pooh book/The place was marked and it was there in blue and white/it just said simply, "Paul stayed last night." Her infidelity is revealed--recriminations, scatology and explicit lyrics ensue.

Jefferson Airplane's third album, 1967's After Bathing at Baxter's, features a song called The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooneil, written by Paul Kantner. "A song of love, hope, expectation, and a degree of doubt," writes Eric V.D. Luft in Die at the Right Time! A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties. "Pooneil was Kantner's fanciful hybrid of A.A. Milne's character, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Fred Neil, the New York City folk rocker." Kantner said Pooneil "referred to Freddie and Winnie-the-Pooh sort of thrown into a Mixmaster on the psychedelic era." The lyrics draw heavily from Milne's poetry collection When We Were Very Young, in particular the poems "Halfway Down" and "Spring Morning."

The band's follow-up album, 1968's Crown of Creation, featured a follow-up song, the title of which made the Pooh connection even more obvious. The House At Pooneil Corners, written by Kantner and Marty Balin, also draws lyrics from Milne's poetry, in this case "Noise, by Pooh" from The House at Pooh Corner. However, the tone of the song "was much darker than its predecessor," writes Luft. "Its graphically descriptive images of mass death and its gruesome aftermath made us think of nothing but nuclear war and its entailed universal annihilation."

Finally, there is an Italian band called Pooh. And check out The Pooh Sticks, an English indie band whose name recalls the favorite pastime of Pooh and Piglet. If you think Quidditch is the first game to make the transition from fiction to the real world, think again: The annual Poohsticks World Championships have been held on England's River Thames since 1984.

For the 60th Anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye: Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?/Green Day, and more

2011-07-16T13:08:00.005-04:00

In honor of the 60th anniversary today of the publication of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, we're reposting our original list of songs inspired by the novel, supplemented with other Salinger-related songs suggested by our readers.

Green Day's Who Wrote Holden Caulfield? from their 1992 album Kerplunk, is named for the novel's protagonist. Apparently the book is a favorite of the band's lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong.

In answer to Green Day's query, Screeching Weasel released I Wrote Holden Caulfield on their 1994 album How to Make Enemies and Irritate People. Note to the Salinger estate: The song includes the suit-provoking lines: I wonder if you'll ever come to realize what I always knew/I wrote Holden Caulfield and so did you.

The definitive statement on the question of authorship comes from the Shy Guys 2006 album Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, with their song J.D. Salinger Wrote Holden Caulfield.

The Guns 'N' Roses song The Catcher In The Rye appears on their Chinese Democracy album from 2008. It seems to have as much to do with John Lennon's murder as with Salinger's novel--Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, had a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in his possession when he was apprehended.

William Holden Caulfield, from Too Much Joy's 2005 album From All of Us to Both of You, includes the lyrics: I'm afraid of people who like Catcher in the Rye/Yeah I like it too but someone tell me why/People he'd despise say I feel like that guy.

Bodi Bill expresses a sentiment we can all get behind in their song I Like Holden Caulfield.

The title of the Old 97's song Rollerskate Skinny, from the 2001 album Satellite Rides, comes from Holden Caulfield's description of his sister, Phoebe, in The Catcher in the Rye: "She's quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny. Roller-skate skinny. I watched her once from the window when she was crossing over Fifth Avenue to go to the park, and that's what she is, roller-skate skinny."

A band called Pencey Prep offers a double-barreled reference to Salinger's novel. The name of the band derives from the fictional school from which Holden Caulfield is expelled. In addition, the title of their song The Secret Goldfish, from their 2001 album Heartbreak in Stereo, comes from the title of a short story referred to in the novel, written by Holden's brother D.B.

There are also songs called Holden Caulfield from a variety of artists, including Tom Freund, Stefan Couture and the Campfire Orchestra, Harris Eisenstadt, Paul Kotheimer, and the Green Pajamas.

Songs with the title Catcher in the Rye have been recorded by a number of artists as well, and there is a band called Catchers in the Rye.

There are also many musical references to other works by Salinger or to the author himself:

A song called Polar Bear, from Ride's 1990 album Nowhere, mentions Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. The same novella lent its name to a Chicago-based band.

The Cure's 1984 album The Top features a song called Bananafishbones. Robert Smith, the band's primary songwriter, confirmed the song's connection to Salinger's story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," from his collection Nine Stories, in an issue of the fanzine Cure News: "the title, for some no-reason, from 'a perfect day for bananafish' - a short story by j d salinger .. again me hating myself..." [Capitalization, syntax and punctuation courtesy of Mr. Smith and Cure News].

The title of the 2005 debut album from We Are Scientists, With Love and Squalor, refers to Salinger's story "For Esmé with Love and Squalor," available in the Nine Stories collection.

For a time in the 1990s, Lisa Loeb's band was called Nine Stories, after Salinger's collection.

The Winona Ryders released a 1995 album called J.D. Salinger.

Finally, a song called "My Foolish Heart" was written for the 1949 film of the same name--the only film to date to be based on Salinger's writing (it was adapted from his story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut," another selection from Nine Stories). The song was nominated for an Academy Award and has been recorded by a number of artists. [Technically, featuring this song violates our Ground Rules, but it's fun anyway.]

News of the World/The Jam, and others

2011-07-08T23:16:00.017-04:00

This is a special tabloid edition of Classics Rock!

Sunday will mark the final edition of the infamous British tabloid News of the World. Founded in 1843 and currently owned by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the paper trafficked in sex, sleaze and celebrity scandal, and the methods used in gathering stories were sometimes ethically questionable. The paper was ultimately sacrificed by Murdoch in the growing phone hacking scandal that continues to unfold in the United Kingdom.

The News of the World was a cultural touchstone, for better or worse, and turns up in a number of popular songs. The Beatles gave it a shoutout in "Polythene Pam," from their classic 1969 album Abbey Road: She's the kind of a girl that makes the News of the World/Yes you could say she was attractively built. This seems to suggest that Pam would be a candidate for the popular "P. 3 girl" feature, which displayed photos of scantily clad women on page three of every issue.

The Pretenders' 1982 song Back On The Chain Gang, available on the album Learning to Crawl, includes the line The phone, T.V. and the News of the World/Got into the house like a pigeon from hell. This was probably inspired by the intense media coverage that attended the death of the band's guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott, from a drug overdose.

Queen released an album called News of the World in 1977, though it does not feature a song with that title. However, the following year The Jam released a single called News Of The World, available on The Very Best of the Jam. Whether or not it referred specifically to the Murdoch paper, the lyrics offered good advice for readers of that tabloid:

Don't believe it all
Find out for yourself
Check before you spread
News of the world

Songs called "News of the World" have also been recorded by Mishal Zeera, None of Us, EL, TC, ManBREAK and The Wildhearts.

Updated 7/9/11 11:18 pm
This just in: The Smiths mention News of the World in "This Night Has Opened My Eyes," found on their 1984 compilation album Hatful of Hollow as well as on their 1987 collection Louder Than Bombs:

In a river the colour of lead
Immerse the baby's head
Wrap her up in the News of the World
Dump her on a doorstep, girl

Thanks to Jack Shafer and Michael C. Moynihan for pointing out the omission.

And Paul Farhi suggests that we might want to include Joe Jackson's Sunday Papers, from his 1979 album Look Sharp!. It's not clear whether Jackson was referring specifically to News of the World, but his song certainly captures the spirit of the thing.

Updated 7/11/11 9:48 pm
Another musical mention of News of the World (as well as sister publication The Sun) in U2's Last Night On Earth, from their 1997 album Pop: She's at the bus-stop with News of the World and the Sun.

For Bloomsday: Flower of the Mountain/Kate Bush

2011-06-16T00:16:00.001-04:00

All of the events in James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses take place on June 16th. That date has come to be known as Bloomsday, after the novel's protagonist, Leopold Bloom.

Kate Bush's song The Sensual World, from her 1989 album of the same name, is drawn from the 18th and final episode, or chapter, of the novel. Often referred to as Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, it recounts the largely unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness thoughts running through the mind of Leopold's wife, Molly, as she lies in bed at the end of the day. The song employs the conceit of Molly leaving the fictional setting of the novel behind and entering reality (Stepping out of the page into the sensual world).

"Originally when I wrote the song 'The Sensual World' I had used text from the end of Ulysses," Bush told The Guardian in London. "When I asked [the Joyce estate] for permission to use the text I was refused, which was disappointing. I then wrote my own lyrics for the song, although I felt that the original idea had been more interesting. Well, I'm not James Joyce am I?"

Earlier this year Bush was preparing her latest album, Director's Cut, which features reworked versions of songs from The Sensual World and from another album, The Red Shoes (1993). "The Sensual World" was one of the songs marked for revision. "When I came to work on this project I thought I would ask for permission again and this time they said yes," Bush said. For the new version of the song, she scrapped the original lyrics and replaced them with text drawn directly from Ulysses. She also changed the title to Flower Of The Mountain. "I am delighted that I have had the chance to fulfill the original concept," Bush said.

For other music inspired by Ulysses and the works of James Joyce--including another musical adaptation of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, this one by Amber--see our previous Bloomsday post.

Ulysses (Kindle Edition)

I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive/Steve Earle

2011-05-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

Steve Earle wears more hats than Bartholomew Cubbins: Singer and songwriter, of course, but also actor (The Wire, Meme), activist, and author (Doghouse Roses, a collection of short stories published in 2001). Last week he released a new album called I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive. This week, his first novel comes out--also called I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

The title for both projects comes from a song by Hank Williams--one of the last singles the country singer released before he died in 1953. (Interestlingly, Earle does not cover the song on the new album.) A spectral Williams appears in Earle's novel, haunting the main character, Doc Ebersole, a disgraced physician who was among the last people to see Williams alive and may have provided the morphine dose that killed him.The novel takes place around the time of JFK's assassination and finds Doc living on the seedy side San Antonio. No longer allowed to practice medicine, and a morphine addict himself, he gets by performing abortions. Then a young woman named Graciela comes seeking his services, and changes his life--for she is able to miraculously heal with the touch of her hand.

Shared title aside, there is no hard-and-fast connection between novel and album except that, according to Earle, they address similar themes. In a recent interview with Publishers Weekly he was asked if the album was a companion piece to the book. Earle said:

Normally I know what I'm going to call an album when I start recording it. There's a title track or I have a bone to pick. This time I didn't. I was just writing the best songs I could write. I recorded it in five days with T Bone Burnett. When I got it all done, I thought, "Oh my God, this album is about the same fucking thing the book is about." It ended up being about mortality, an experience we all have to go through. Not a final experience. Not necessarily a period, but a comma.

In an interview with The Telegraph in the U.K., Earle said that it took him about eight years to write the novel, "in six or eight separate marches." Earle also talked about his own reading preferences: "I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know. But I loved the Harry Potter books." He cites Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter as another favorite and a big influence on his own novel. He also tends to go back to the fiction he loved as a child, such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. "Fiction is what I read least and then it tends to take the place of drugs," Earle says. "I get addicted and go back to things like Tolkien"

See Steve Earle discussing his new album and novel here.

I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (Kindle Edition)
Doghouse Roses (Kindle Edition)
Coming Through Slaughter (Kindle Edition)

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite/R.E.M.

2011-05-02T00:01:00.001-04:00

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, from R.E.M.'s 1992 album Automatic for the People, features one of the great misheard song lyrics of all time: Call me when you try to wake her up. Delivered in a rushed, compressed style, the line has inspired a variety of incorrect interpretations, from "Calling Jamaica" to "Coney jah waker" to "Come and eat your bacon now." In fact, it ranked as the #1 misheard song lyric in a poll conducted in the United Kingdom last year.

The song also features a shoutout to beloved children's author Dr. Seuss. "Automatic for the People finds [lyricist Michael Stipe] in the attic, opening boxes containing all the souvenirs and reminders of his childhood and adolescence," writes Marcus Gray in his 1997 book It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. "Among the paraphernalia he rediscovers, in 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,' is Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Published in the late Fifties, it is the second in the Doctor's Beginner Books series, and a relatively modern example of the anthropomorphic fable."

The song's narrator, who has fallen on hard times and appears to be living in a phone booth, sings about some things he'd like to have, including A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some Nescafe on ice/A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading from Dr. Seuss. The song then goes on to reference the specific book featuring Seuss's best-known character:

The cat in the hat came back, wrecked a lot of havoc on the way
Always had a smile and a reason to pretend.
But their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream.

On the recording, Stipe can be heard to laugh following the mention of Dr. Seuss. Gray quotes bandmember Mike Mills explaining the levity: "I kept trying to get Michael to say 'Seuss' [hard s], not 'Zeuss' and he couldn't do it."

Stipe used the 1961 Tokens hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) as a jumping off point for the song, though little of the original survives ("To acknowledge the debt, Michael yodels a brief snatch of the melody during the introduction," Gray writes). There is a lot of conjecture regarding the meaning of the song, with theories ranging from drug use to a soured relationship to telephones. In his 2004 book Reveal: The Story of R.E.M., Johnny Black quotes Stipe on the subject: "I have no idea what the song is about. It's a little bit of a cartoon song to me and it took place in a world of flat surfaces and clear delineation of no depth of field, it's all about cartoons. That's what I saw when I wrote it."

If the song really is nonsense, there's no better way to signal that than with a reference to the master of nonsense himself, Dr. Seuss.

Saskia Hamilton/Ben Folds & Nick Hornby

2011-04-25T00:01:00.001-04:00

For the 2010 album Lonely Avenue, Ben Folds collaborated with author Nick Hornby, whose books include High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998), and most recently Juliet, Naked (2009). Hornby provided the lyrics, Folds supplied the melodies and recorded the songs. "Each track is a story," Time Magazine wrote of the album. "And in every story, there's something relatable. In fact, the album almost comes across as a short-story collection put to music. Perhaps this is the benefit of asking a novelist to co-write the songs."

One of the tracks on the album is called Saskia Hamilton, named for the poet whose collections include As for Dream (2001), Canal, and Divide These (both 2005). She also edited The Letters of Robert Lowell.The song is less about Hamilton herself, however, and more about her name. (I've only ever seen her name on the spine but that's enough. I want to make her mine!) "One night I just found myself thinking about what a fantastic name she has for her line of work," Hornby wrote in the liner notes. "The song's narrator is a teenage poetry nerd. There are some, still."

One final note: The album's name was inspired by Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus, Alex Halberstadt's 2008 biography of the blues musician. There's a song called Doc Pomus, inspired by the book, on the album.

High Fidelity (Kindle Edition)

About a Boy (Kindle Edition)

Juliet, Naked (Kindle Edition)

Like a Great Gatsby/Elliott Murphy, and more

2011-04-18T00:01:00.002-04:00

As reported yesterday by CBS News Sunday Morning, the Long Island mansion that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby was demolished on Saturday. The current owners could no longer afford the upkeep, and the once-elegant building had been condemned. The story moved us to repost our item about Elliott Murphy's song "Like a Great Gatsby," inspired by the novel, supplemented with a word about Reg & Phil's song "Daisy Buchanan," named for the object of Gatsby's desire.

Elliott Murphy's 1973 debut album Aquashow features the song "Like a Great Gatsby," a reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. The song opens with the lines: Waiting for some dream lover like a great Gatsby/And then I look in the mirror and it's only me--a reference to the novel's rich and mysterious title character. Gatsby lives in the wealthy-with-new-money Long Island community of West Egg and pines for Daisy Buchanan, who lives across the bay in the wealthy-with-old-money community of East Egg. Gatsby fell for Daisy before he became wealthy, and social constraints kept them apart. Everything he has done--acquiring a fortune, throwing extravagant parties--has been designed to attract her attention. But Daisy is married now and lost to Gatsby, just as the narrator of the song seems to be addressing a woman beyond his reach (Use to follow you home/Hold on to you at dancing school and call you on the phone forever/But now your world begins with never).

The line Do you ride on ancient ships under Dr. Eckleburg's eyes to heaven alludes to one of the key images in the novel, a fading billboard on the road into New York City featuring a huge pair of blue eyes behind enormous yellow spectacles. ("Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens," speculates the narrator, Nick Carraway.)

On his web site Murphy talks about the album's cover art: "I suggested that we shoot in the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel because that’s where part of The Great Gatsby took place. . . . The white suit I had bought not far from Gatsby land on the north shore of Long Island. It was made in France and I still have it hanging in my mother’s closet. Maybe I should give it to the Hard Rock Hotel."

For another musical take on Gatsby, there is Daisy Buchanan by the duo Reg & Phil, from their self-titled 2010 album. Here the narrator (or possibly a series of narrators) tries to convince Gatsby of the futility of his obsession with Daisy.

Mr. Gatsby, I know how this feels.
I won't forget her name;
You're right, she's a steal.
But this Saturday's one hundred;
It's the one hundredth party.
You'll want hundred more
days and house filled.
you'll need a lifetime
of days and house filled.

A free download of the song is available on the Reg & Phil website. The video features stills from the 1974 film The Great Gatsby, adapted from the novel.

The Great Gatsby (Kindle Edition)

The Scientist/Coldplay

2011-04-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

WikiColdplay states that the song The Scientist, from Coldplay's 2002 album A Rush of Blood to the Head, "shows strong allusion to the short story The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne." The story appears in Hawthorne's 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse.

Hawthorne's tale concerns Aylmer, a dedicated scientist who marries a young woman named Georgiana. Georgiana's beauty is very nearly perfect, except for a small birthmark on her cheek. She is accustomed to the mark and gives it no thought, but Aylmer feels that it keeps his wife from attaining true perfection. He becomes increasingly obsessed with removing the birthmark, and it soon becomes a source of discord between them. In the end, Georgiana agrees to submit to Aylmer's treatment and he prepares a solution for her, which she drinks. It successfully removes the birthmark, but kills Georgiana in the process.

The narrator of the song seems to also be a scientist (I was just guessing/At numbers and figures/Pulling the puzzles apart) and who also seems to have lost a loved one (It's such a shame for us to part), perhaps as a result of his devotion to science:

Questions of science,
Science and progress,
Do not speak as loud as my heart.

Tell me you love me,
Come back and haunt me,
Oh, what a rush to the start.

So the song certainly seems to share some themes with the story, but there is nothing to specifically link the two. Unfortunately, WikiColdplay offers no documentation for the claim that the one alludes to the other, and we have been unable to locate any supporting evidence.

Chris Martin is one guy who would know for sure, but his explanation of the song isn't very helpful. ""That's just about girls," he said in Billboard. "It's weird that whatever else is on your mind, whether it's the downfall of global economics or terrible environmental troubles, the thing that always gets you most is when you fancy someone."

Mosses From An Old Manse (Kindle Edition)

Hey Ahab/Elton John and Leon Russell

2011-04-04T00:01:00.001-04:00

Stereo Subversion wrote that the 2010 Elton John-Leon Russell collaboration The Union "could have done without Hey Ahab, which attempts to put the Moby Dick dilemma into song. A large book did the story justice. A short pop song just isn’t enough bandwidth for the epic."

To be fair, we don't think that's what Elton and Leon and lyricist Bernie Taupin were trying to do. Ahab, the monomaniacal whaler from Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, provides the central image of the song:

Hey Ahab can you tell me where
I can catch a ride out of here
Hey Ahab hoist that sail
You gotta stand up straight
When you ride that whale

And the object of Ahab's vengeful fury, the albino whale Moby Dick, puts in an appearance:

When you're clinging onto a driftwood boat
You pray a great white whale might come your way

But the Old Testament prophet Jonah also appears--he who was swallowed by a whale (OK, a "big fish" for you biblical sticklers)--and there are also references to "freeway traffic" and "a chain link fence" that are anachronistic in the context of Moby-Dick. So while the lyrics use the novel as a point of reference, this was never an attempt to encompass all the themes and action of the book in a five-and-a-half-minute pop song.

Besides, it's hard to quibble when a song rocks like this one. We think the Financial Times (of all places) got it right when it described "Hey Ahab" as "a boogie-woogie tribute to Moby-Dick with superb lyrics by Elton’s long-term collaborator Bernie Taupin and a storming momentum, like Captain Ahab’s mad pursuit of the great whale."

Moby-Dick (Kindle Edition)

Sandman/America

2011-03-14T00:01:00.001-04:00

Sandman, from America's self-titled 1971 debut album, is often said to have been inspired by the 1967 science fiction novel Logan's Run, written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. (To cite just one example, you'll find the song included on this list of science fiction references in music.)

Set in the year 2116, the novel depicts a society that has imposed a strictly enforced lifespan of 21 years on its population (expanded to 30 years in the 1976 film adaptation). Upon attaining that age on their Lastday, citizens are required to report to special locations called Sleepshops to be euthanized. Needless to say, some object to this arrangement and attempt to escape their fate by fleeing. The novel's protagonist, Logan 3 (expanded to Logan 5 in the movie), is a Deep Space Operative--also known as a Sandman--whose job is to hunt down and terminate these Runners. In the end, Logan himself becomes a Runner after reaching his own Lastday.

It's easy to see why some have found a link to the novel in the song's lyrics, with lines such as Ain't the years gone by fast/I suppose you have missed them, and particularly the repeated chorus I understand you've been running from the man/That goes by the name of the Sandman. Unfortunately, the link simply doesn't exist. In a booklet included in a retrospective boxed set released in 2000 called Highway: 30 Years of America, band member Dewey Bunnell explains that the song was inspired by conversations he had with airmen returning from Vietnam:

They'd buy us a beer at the commissary and tell us stories about the war. We weren't very political or very military. But "Sandman" came out of our eyes being opened to the fact that these guys weren't much older than us. One of the things that I vividly remember hearing one guy say is that he hardly ever slept in Vietnam--he was afraid to go to sleep. So there's the line, "You've been running from the man who goes by the name of the Sandman"--you don't want to go to sleep because you might be killed. I thought, What a lousy way to live.

For Presidents Day 2011: A List of Songs That Mention U.S. Presidents

2011-02-21T00:01:00.008-05:00

Happy Presidents Day! In honor of the holiday we've compiled a list of songs that mention U.S. presidents--44 of them, in fact, to correspond to the number of individuals who have occupied the highest office in the land.

You'll find that Richard Nixon has been a particularly powerful muse for songwriters, and that Al Stewart is the Doris Kearns Goodwin of songwriters--nobody has more POTUS references in more songs than he does.

This list remains a work in progress. If you know of a song we missed (there must be hundreds) please feel free to submit it using the 'Suggest a song!" link on the right side of this page. We'll update the list for next year!

Abraham, Martin and John by Dion. The Abraham is Lincoln, the John is Kennedy (and the Martin is MLK).

Apollo by the Alan Parsons Project, an instrumental that includes a snippet of JFK's 1961 "Man on the Moon" speech.

Ballad of Ronald Reagan by the Austin Lounge Lizards. "They called him Ronald--Ronald Reagan..."

California (Rutherford Hayes in the Morning) by Darryl Purpose. In addition to Hayes, the song also mentions Chester A. Arthur.

Campaigner by Neil Young. "Even Richard Nixon has got soul..."

(A Child's View Of) The Eisenhower Years by Al Stewart. "Elvis on the television, G.I.s in Korea/It's a child's view of the Eisenhower years..."

Dear Mr. President by Pink. The President in question is not identified by name, but this is clearly addressed to George W. Bush.

Diary by Andrew McKnight, about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. "Jefferson writes, 'Dear Diary, what have I done...?'"

Do The Clinton by the Foremen, a dance based on Bill Clinton's moves ("Hustle free trade and stage a bombing raid/Everybody do the Clinton...")

Eisenhower Blues by Elvis Costello. "Oh oh oh I got the Eisenhower Blues/Thinking about me and you and what on earth are we gonna do?"

Franklin Pierce by the Two Man Gentlemen Band. "There ain't nothing funny 'bout the death of Franklin Pierce..."

George Washington by Andrew McKnight. "The sign says George Washington slept here/Now there's a guy who had a couple of good ideas..."

Grandpa Was A Carpenter by John Prine. "...And voted for Eisenhower/'cause Lincoln won the war..."

Gush or Bore by David Roth. "I won't say who I voted for, or even if 'twas Gush or Bore..."

Hard to Find by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. "Johnny F and Jackie looked like they had it all..."

I Do the Rock by Tim Curry. "Carter, Begin and Sadat/Brezhnev, Deng and Castro..."

Inaugural Blues by Loudon Wainwright III features Bill Clinton: "Bill and Hill are our first couple..."

I Saw It On T.V. by John Fogerty. You'll find two presidents in this song, only one of them mentioned by name:
1. "A man named Ike was in the White House/Big black limousine..."
2. "A young man from Boston set sail the new frontier/And we watched the dream dead-end in Dallas/We buried innocence that year..."

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) by Bob Dylan. "Even the President of the United States has to stand naked..." Generic, but we'll take it.

James K. Polk by They Might Be Giants. "And when the votes were cast the winner was/Mr. James K. Polk, Napoleon of the stump..."

League of Notions by Al Stewart."Woodrow Wilson waves his fourteen points around..."

Like William McKinley by Al Stewart. "I'll sit on my porch like William McKinley/And I'll let the world come to me..."

Lincoln's Man by Ben Bedford. "A lover's note, a mother's prayer, and a father's curse/But I'm Lincoln's man, I'm Lincoln's man for better or for worse."

"Lindy Comes to Town" by Al Stewart. "Mr. Coolidge he will say, it's a public holiday..."

Line 'Em Up by James Taylor. "I remember Richard Nixon back in '74 and the final scene at the White House door..."

Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation by Tom Paxton. "I got a letter from LBJ/It said 'This is your lucky day'..."

Obama by Ridi. Because, you know, it's about Obama.

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming..."

On To Victory Mr. Roosevelt by Loudon Wainwright III. Mostly about FDR, but the last couple of stanzas are about Obama.

Presidents Dayby Loudon Wainwright III. "George was the first one--Abe was the best,"Loudon sings, but he expresses some regret that "there's been more thanone George, I'm sorry to say."

Postcards From Richard Nixon by Elton John. "We heard Richard Nixon say, welcome to the USA..."

Post World War Two Blues by Al Stewart. "Uncle Ike was our American pal/Nobody talked about the Suez Canal..."

Ray & Ron by Rod MacDonald. Compares the lives of Ray Charles and Ronald Reagan ("Ray was a musician/Ron was a president"), who died the same week.

Russians by Sting. "Mr. Reagan says we will protect you/I don't subscribe to this point of view..."

Semper Fi by John Gorka, which tells how Gorka's father met Eleanor Roosevelt. "Her husband was the President/Til he ran out of time/Her Franklin D. was history/And they'd put him on the dime..."

Superbird by Country Joe and the Fish. "It's a bird it's a plane, it's a man insane, it's my President LBJ..."

Sympathy For The Devil by the Rolling Stones. "I shouted out/Who killed the Kennedys..."

Teddy Roosevelt's Guns by Silver Mt. Zion. "Shop and save/Beneath the western sun/Bought and paid for with Teddy Roosevelt's guns..."

Ten Cents A Coup by Phil Ochs. "Here's to Nixon and Agnew/They are the stars of the stage and screen..." (Lyndon Johnson appears too: "I thought that Johnson was the devil...")

Tricky Dicky by Country Joe and the Fish. Richard Nixon appears as "Tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda/The genuine plastic man..."

Two Men In The Building by Steve Gillette, describes learning of the John F. Kennedy assassination while in Paris in 1963 ("Came a knock on the door, said the word was on the wire/They wounded your president when he drove into the crossfire...").

Warren Harding by Al Stewart. "Warren Gamaliel Harding alone in the White House watching the sun come up on the morning of 1921..."

We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel. Mentions Harry Truman, Richard Nixon (twice!), Eisenhower, Reagan, and "JFK blown away."

William Howard Taft by the Two Man Gentlemen Band. "William Howard Taft got himself stuck in a bath..."

With thanks to Greg Hughes.

For Presidents Day, Part III: Potent POTUSes

2011-02-20T17:53:00.000-05:00

A further update on our list of songs that mention U.S. Presidents. Al Stewart continues to prove that he is the Doris Kearns Goodwin of songwriters--more POTUS mentions in more songs than anyone else. And Loudon Wainwright III has a song about Presidents Day itself.

Complete list tomorrow.

Presidents Day by Loudon Wainwright III. "George was the first one--Abe was the best," Loudon sings, but he expresses some regret that "there's been more than one George, I'm sorry to say."

Post World War Two Blues by Al Stewart. "Uncle Ike was our American pal/Nobody talked about the Suez Canal..."

Ballad of Ronald Reagan by the Austin Lounge Lizards. "They called him Ronald--Ronald Reagan..."

Sympathy For The Devil by the Rolling Stones. "I shouted out/Who killed the Kennedys..."

Obama by Ridi. Because, you know, it's about Obama.

On To Victory Mr. Roosevelt by Loudon Wainwright III. Mostly about FDR, but the last couple of stanzas are about Obama.

League of Notions by Al Stewart."Woodrow Wilson waves his fourteen points around..."

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) by Bob Dylan. "Even the President of the United States has to stand naked..." Generic, but we'll take it.

Dear Mr. President by Pink. The President in question is not identified by name, but this is clearly addressed to George W. Bush.

"Lindy Comes to Town" by Al Stewart. "Mr. Coolidge he will say, it's a public holiday..."

For Presidents Day, Part II: Hail to the Chief

2011-02-19T23:14:00.004-05:00

Here's an update on our Presidents Day effort to list songs that mention U.S. Presidents.

Two trends are emerging:
1. Richard Nixon was a significant muse for songwriters of a certain generation.
2. Al Stewart owns the POTUS song space--he's got more songs than anybody.

Help out by sending suggestions using the "Submit a song" link on the right side of this page, or emailing us at classicsrocksubmit@gmail.com. Or post them on Twitter with the hashtag #PresidentSongs. We'll post the whole list on Monday.

Apollo by the Alan Parsons Project, an instrumental that includes a snippet of JFK's 1961 "Man on the Moon" speech.

Like William McKinley by Al Stewart. "I'll sit on my porch like William McKinley/And I'll let the world come to me..."

Russians by Sting. "Mr. Reagan says we will protect you/I don't subscribe to this point of view..."

Abraham, Martin and John by Dion. The Abraham is Lincoln, the John is Kennedy (and the Martin is MLK).

I Do the Rock by Tim Curry. "Carter, Begin and Sadat/Brezhnev, Deng and Castro..."

I Saw It On T.V. by John Fogerty. You'll find two presidents in this song, only one of them mentioned by name:
1. "A man named Ike was in the White House/Big black limousine..."
2. "A young man from Boston set sail the new frontier/And we watched the dream dead-end in Dallas/We buried innocence that year..."

Teddy Roosevelt's Guns by Silver Mt. Zion. "Shop and save/Beneath the western sun/Bought and paid for with Teddy Roosevelt's guns..."

Campaigner by Neil Young. "Even Richard Nixon has got soul..."

For Presidents Day: Songs That Mention U.S. Presidents

2011-02-18T23:10:00.003-05:00

This weekend we're diverting from our usual mission of featuring songs based on works of literature. In honor of Presidents Day, we've decided to compile a list of songs that mention U.S. Presidents.

But we need your help! If you can suggest a song featuring a POTUS past or present, use the "Suggest a song" link on the right of this page, or just email us at classicsrocksubmit@gmail.com. Here are a few to get you started...

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming..."

Hard to Find by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. "Johnny F and Jackie looked like they had it all..."

Warren Harding by Al Stewart. "Warren Gamaliel Harding alone in the White House watching the sun come up on the morning of 1921..."

We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel. Mentions Harry Truman, Richard Nixon (twice!), Eisenhower, Reagan, and "JFK blown away."

Al Stewart again: (A Child's View Of) The Eisenhower Years.

Postcards From Richard Nixon by Elton John. "We heard Richard Nixon say, welcome to the USA..."

Line 'Em Up by James Taylor. "I remember Richard Nixon back in '74 and the final scene at the White House door..."

Why so many songs about Richard Nixon?

Sigh No More/Mumford & Sons

2011-02-13T23:26:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Mumford & Sons for their memorable joint performance with Bob Dylan and the Avett Brothers tonight at the 2011 Grammy Awards. We hope it makes up for being passed over in the two categories in which they were nominated (Best New Artist and Best Rock Song).

The London Evening Standard dubbed Mumford & Sons "The Bookshop Band" and wrote that their music, "like the best bookshops, is intimate, old-fashioned and filled with literary references." For our part, we hardly know where to begin with their debut album Sigh No More. Marcus Mumford told the paper that nearly half the songs on the album are inspired by authors.

Leading the pack is Timshel, inspired by John Steinbeck's East of Eden, published in 1952. The novel makes strong allusions to the Book of Genesis, particularly the story of Cain and Abel. A character named Lee, a Chinese-American domestic servant who spent years studying the Cain and Abel episode, translates the Hebrew word timshel as "Thou mayest"--meaning man is free to choose. Timshel becomes a key point of reference in the book. Lee says:

There are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win. . . . Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this--this is a ladder to the stars."

The song's lyrics distill this as: And you have your choices/And these are what make man great/His ladder to the stars. The repeated line As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand also resonates as the book focuses on two sets of brothers within the Trask family--Charles and Adam, and in the next generation Caleb and Aron--whose lives parallel those of Cain and Abel in significant ways.

Steinbeck's influence can also be felt in the track Dust Bowl Dance, an allusion to the milieu of his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Marcus Mumford even connects his favorite author's attitude to the experience of touring. "He talked about how a journey is a thing of its own, and you can't plan it or predict it too much because that suffocates the life out of it," he told the London Evening Standard. "That's kind of what touring is like. Even though there's a structure--you know what towns you're going to, and that you'll be playing a gig--pretty much anything can happen."

Other references: The album's title is a quote from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and the title track, Sigh No More, includes quotes from that play. Roll Away Your Stone paraphrases Macbeth (Shakespeare's For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires/Let not light see my black desires becomes Stars hide your fires/For these here be my desires). "You can rip off Shakespeare all you like; no lawyer's going to call you up on that one," Mumford observes. The Cave includes references to The Odyssey--as we've seen in previous posts, a favorite literary reference in popular music.

The band's devotion to books extends beyond their music: They took part in a campaign to help save Britain's struggling independent booksellers. And when Marcus Mumford isn't writing songs, performing, touring, or reading, he runs a book club on the band's website.

East of Eden (KindleEdition)
The Grapes of Wrath (Kindle Edition)
Much Ado About Nothing (Kindle Edition)
Macbeth (Kindle Edition)
The Odyssey (Kindle Edition)

Girls in Their Summer Clothes/Bruce Springsteen

2011-01-31T00:01:00.014-05:00

There's a lot of conjecture out there that Bruce Springsteen's Girls In Their Summer Clothes, from his 2007 album Magic, was inspired by Irwin Shaw's celebrated 1939 short story The Girls in Their Summer Dresses (found in the collection Short Stories: Five Decades).

We could find no statement from Mr. Springsteen to either confirm or dispel this rumor (even after an exhaustive 6-minute search), but we found an essay by critic Armond White that links the song and the story.

"The notion of the Great American Novel died the moment Hollywood was invented and though the idea was briefly resurrected in the mid-20th century, it died again with the birth of rock and roll," White wrote in the journal First of the Month.He argues that Springsteen's 2002 album The Rising was "an honorableattempt at a kind of novelistic national vision—a high cultural concepttranslated to a pop medium," but concludes that "Magic perfects the Great American Novel concept into an Album-of-the-Moment urgency." He continues:

Springsteen faces the same fundamental questions as the post-WWIIAmerican novelists. His sexual and social response is essential to therich feeling of a song like "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" which wasinspired by Depression-era writer Irwin Shaw's career-defining shortstory "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," where an entwined dilemma ofmarital fidelity and urban stress concentrates attention on a lostfaith.

We're not sure we agree with White that the Boss was inspired by Shaw. Springsteen's hopeful song about persevering through hard times to abetter future (Things been a little tight/But I know they're gonna turn my way) has little in common thematically with Shaw's story, in whicha couple strolling in New York confront deep fault-lines in theirmarriage as a result of the husband's wandering eye. But when White callsthe song "my favorite track on the album," we're in complete agreement.

Shaw's story seems to have inspired some other musicians though:
• Brian Hobbs features an instrumental called Girls in Their Summer Dresses on his 2010 album Second Glances.
• Texas musician David Fahl's song The Girls in Their Summer Dresses appears on his 2008 album Life Is Good. "I wrote this at the request of my wife in honor of the Irwin Shaw short story of the same name," Fahl says.

Also notable is The Girls In Their Summer Dresses by The Airborne Toxic Event, which can be found on the deluxe edition of their eponymous album, released in 2008. The band's Mikel Jollett discussed the song with Radio Free Silver Lake:

"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" is a story by Irwin Shaw. It's about a man and a woman walking down the street in New York city in the summer. The man keeps staring at these beautiful women as they walk by. The woman, who is his wife, is not happy about this. They fight. He reasons that he's been a good husband, supportive, faithful, etc... but just must stare at these woman. He can't help it. It's a very compelling argument he gives, but she simply can't accept it, won't accept it. The song is basically their argument -- his reasoning and her response to it.

I didn't actually read the story until I saw that Woody Allen movie Celebrity. There's a writer in that movie who says about the story that the title alone is better than most short stories. I thought so too. Such a compelling image the words inspire, kind of a nostalgia for innocence, youth: who are these girls? Why are they wearing dresses? Will I ever know such things again? Have I lost something? Am I dying?

The story's pretty good, too.

You can sample the song here. Jollett himself is at work on a novel and--in a touch that warms our Classics Rock! heart--the band's name comes from a section of Don DeLillo's 1985 novel White Noise.

In Memory of Reynolds Price: Copperline and New Hymn/James Taylor

2011-01-20T20:34:00.006-05:00

Celebrated author Reynolds Price died today at the age of 77, as the result of a heart attack he suffered on Sunday.Price was the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University, where he taught for more than 50 years. He was known as a prolific writer who produced nonfiction, poetry, plays, essays, and fiction, including the novel Kate Vaiden, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1986. His most recent book was his third memoir, Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back, published in 2009.

Less well known is Price's work as a lyricist: He collaborated on two songs with his friend and fellow North Carolinian James Taylor.

"Price emerged as perhaps the first significant American novelist to compose a successful Top 40 popular song; with his friend, singer/songwriter James Taylor, Price collaborated on the 1991 hit popular song 'Copperline,' as well as on another song, entitled 'Hymn,'" writes James A. Schiff in his 1997 book Understanding Reynolds Price. Schiff elaborates:

The collaboration between Price and Taylor goes back to 1982, when Taylor wrote the score for a PBS television production of Price's play Private Contentment. . . . The first song Price and Taylor wrote together was "Hymn" in 1988. Taylor had wanted to write a song for the retirement of an old friend, Bishop Paul Moore, and Price suggested they write a hymn. He then wrote the lyrics to "Hymn," which can be found in The Use of Fire (1990), and Taylor added the music (it was recorded several years later under the name New Hymn on Taylor's Live). The other song, Copperline which they cowrote in 1991 while Price was staying with Taylor at his Connecticut home, can be found on Taylor's New Moon Shine CD.

Ardent Spirits (Kindle Edition)

El Dorado/George Alexander and The Mellomen

2011-01-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hiatus over. While we were away we had occasion to reacquaint ourselves with the 1967 John Wayne western El Dorado, directed by Howard Hawks. It's entertaining but no classic (if you've seen the earlier Wayne/Hawks collaboration Rio Bravo, you've seen El Dorado—it's essentially a remake). We enjoyed it, but our attention was particularly drawn to the filmmakers' references to Edgar Allan Poe's 1849 poem Eldorado, which can be found in The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

A character called Mississippi, played by James Caan, quotes the poem throughout the film, but the allusions begin with the opening credit sequence, which features a title song performed by George Alexander and The Mellomen. This amiable cowboy ditty reworks Poe's theme of a lifelong quest to attain an elusive goal, and lifts phrases directly from the poem—In sunshine and shadow and particularly Ride, boldly ride, a line that was seemingly made to be used in an amiable cowboy ditty. The lyrics are by actor John Gabriel, who appears in the film as Pedro, with music by Nelson Riddle. Click here to see El Dorado's opening credit sequence, featuring paintings by Western artist Olaf Wieghorst, who also appears in the film as a gunsmith called the Swede.

For a more faithful musical rendering of the poem, see Donovan's 1996 album Sutras, which includes a track called Eldorado that puts Poe's own words to music. Poe scholar Burton R. Pollin, writing in the journal Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, called the track "outstanding" and said it is "composed and sung well by Donovan." See Donovan performing the song here.

The Complete Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (Kindle Edition)

Stuck Between Stations/The Hold Steady - Part II

2010-11-03T22:22:00.003-04:00

In our previous post we examined the reference to Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road in The Hold Steady song Stuck Between Stations, found on their 2006 album Boys and Girls in America. But there's another literary reference in the song that focuses on Minneapolis poet John Berryman.

Berryman's 1964 volume 77 Dream Songs won the Pulitzer Prize (it was later combined with a second collection, His Toy, His Story, His Rest and published in one volume called The Dream Songs). His later works were less well received, however, and he suffered from depression and alcoholism. (He was drunk and exhausted, but he was critically acclaimed and respected, according to the lyrics.) In 1972, he committed suicide by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The song alludes to this event:

The devil and John Berryman
Took a walk together
They ended up on Washington
Talking to the river...

And a few lines later:

That was the night that we thought John Berryman could fly.
But he didn't
So he died.

Berryman's own father, a banker, had killed himself when the poet was twelve years old.

Stuck Between Stations/The Hold Steady

2010-09-17T22:55:00.002-04:00

The Hold Steady's 2006 album Boys and Girls in America takes its name from the opening lyrics of a song on the record called Stuck Between Stations:

There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right
Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together

The lyrics, in turn, allude to an incident in Jack Kerouac's classic 1957 novel On the Road. Following an unsatisfying sexual encounter with a waitress, the book's narrator, Sal Paradise (a thinly fictionalized version of Kerouac himself), muses:

Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk--real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment precious.

The line Boys and girls in America is also repeated on another track from the album, First Night.

["Stuck Between Stations" features a second literary reference, unrelated to On the Road, which we'll cover in our next post.]

On the Road (Kindle Edition)

Furry Old Lobster/Jonathan Coulton

2010-09-05T00:30:00.001-04:00

Hard to believe that Labor Day Weekend is upon us already. There's still time for one last summertime fling--how about getting your friends together tonight and going out for some furry lobster?

If only you could. In his 2005 book The Areas of My Expertise, "Daily Show" contributor John Hodgman explains why the once plentiful furry lobster is off the menu--permanently. Hodgman provides "A Brief Time Line of the Lobster in America," which reveals that the original "lobster" was a furry creature remarkably similar to an otter. What we call lobsters are actually European lobsters, introduced to New York City in 1890 in a misguided experiment that goes horribly wrong. The city is soon overrun with the creatures, and none other than Theodore Roosevelt is brought in as police commissioner with a mandate to rid New York of the nasty crustaceans. "Discovering that the lobster cannot easily be killed except by boiling," Hodgman writes, "Roosevelt instead diverts the creatures to Maine via a secret canal." In the decades that follow, Maine becomes the battleground on which the Old Lobster and the New Lobster vie for supremacy. Finally, in 1980, the last Old Lobster perishes in the kitchen of a Furry Old Lobster restaurant. "It's a sad story, true," Hodgman acknowledges, "but no sadder than much of history."

Singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, a frequent collaborator of Hodgman's, set the tragic tale of the Old Lobster to music in Furry Old Lobster, found on his 2006 CD Thing a Week One.

Sing hey hidey ho, where'd the old lobster go?
And his body so furry and brown?
Sing ho hidey hey, have they all gone away?
For we haven't seen many around

It's a sad and wistful sea chanty, or chantey, or possibly even shanty--our dictionary wasn't terribly clear on the subject. The point is, if you do go out for seafood this weekend and Furry Lobster is on the specials board, you're being had.

The Broadcast/Paul McCartney and Wings

2010-08-26T18:49:00.062-04:00

In The Words and Music of Paul McCartney: The Solo Years, Vincent Benitez writes: "The Broadcast is the most experimental track in Wings' entire output." David Bowie was reportedly so impressed by the track, which appears on the 1979 album Back to the Egg, that he thought it should be released as the first single. Technically, the track isn't a song at all, but a spoken word piece heard over a fragment of melody--and the words aren't spoken by Paul McCartney or anybody else in the band.

The track was recorded at Lympne Castle in Kent, England, which dates from the 12th century. The castle was owned by a gentleman named Harold Margary and his wife Deirdre. Benitez quotes Wings guitarist Laurence Juber:

It's a bit hazy but the guy that owns the castle where we were recording, both he and his wife had these very plummy kind of voices
. . . . I think it was like, "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to have them read some classic English literature material and use the orchestral background to be just this kind of weird interlude." And they were game for it.

McCartney selected books at random from the castle library and recorded the Margarys reading selections. Harold Margary read from The Sport of Kings by Ian Hay and The Little Man by John Galsworthy, which is what you hear on the final track. Deirdre Margary read lyrics from a song called "The Poodle and the Pug," from a 1946 light opera called Big Ben. "Her reading didn't make the final version," reports Ian Peel in The Unknown Paul McCartney, "but a few lines ('...with tufts of hair stuck here and there which one would like to tug...') were spliced into Reception," another track on the album.

The Words and Music of Paul McCartney: The Solo Years (Kindle Edition)

The Little Man (Kindle Edition)

Bukowski/Modest Mouse

2010-08-12T16:55:00.020-04:00

Prolific poet, novelist and short story writer Charles Bukowski would have turned 90 on Monday (August 16th). Bukowski, who died in 1994, lived a hard life of drinking, gambling, dead end jobs, and rocky relationships with women. A strong autobiographical thread runs through his writing, which is peopled with losers, lowlifes, and hustlers. Much of Bukowski's work is set in the seamy underside of Los Angeles, his home town.

An alcoholic, Bukowski had a difficult personality--his behavior could be disruptive, boorish, and combative at his public readings and other social events. The song Bukowski by Modest Mouse, from their 2004 album Good News for People Who Love Bad News, picks up on this trait. The song can hardly be considered a tribute with lyrics such as these:

Woke this morning and it seemed to me
That every night turns out to be
A little bit more like Bukowski
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read
But God, who'd want to be
God, who'd want to be such an asshole?

In his 2006 book Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read (yes, the title is taken from the lyrics of "Bukowski"), Alan Goldsher offers these thoughts on Modest Mouse lyricist Isaac Brock's attitude toward the late author:

Considering Isaac's love of both imbibing and literature, it was only a matter of time before he acknowledged eternally drunken poet/novelist Charles Bukowski in song. But Brock's attitude toward drinking and drugging was slowly changing, so it would stand to reason that he might also take a different view of Bukowski. While Brock sings about Bukowski being "a pretty good read," he was less than impressed with the author's worldview. "He glamorized alchoholism and misogyny," Isaac says. "I've seen friends get impressed by him and he seemed to impress himself by being a pain in the ass. I just don't like alcoholism being put in a way that makes my friends wanna be alcoholics." When Brock repeats the lyric "God, who'd wanna be such an asshole," you wonder if he's talking about Charles or himself.

Another musical reference to Bukowski can be found in U2's song Dirty Day, from their 1993 album Zooropa. The song, which depicts a difficult encounter between an estranged father and son, is dedicated to Bukowski. The phrase "these days, days, days run away like horses over the hill," repeated by Bono over the song's fadeout, alludes to Bukowski's 1969 poetry collection The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills. Bukowski died a few months after the album was released.

Singer-songwriter Tom Russell's 2005 album Hotwalker: Charles Bukowski & A Ballad for Gone was inspired by his exchange of letters with Bukowski. The album features original songs, narration, and actual recordings of Bukowski and his contemporaries (including Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce). Russell has also collected his correspondence with Bukowski into a limited edition book called Tough Company, published in 2008.

Finally, the Boo Radleys state the obvious in their song Charles Bukowski Is Dead, from their 1995 album Wake Up!, released almost exactly one year after Bukowski died.

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (Kindle Edition)

Driving the Last Spike/Genesis

2010-08-09T08:00:00.002-04:00

When composing a song, Phil Collins usually doesn't start with a particular theme in mind--he just lets the ideas and words flow freely as he's working out the melody. "If you go right back to Face Value, I never sat down and wrote anything for that record," Collins says in the band's 2007 book Genesis: Chapter and Verse. "In The Air Tonight was totally improvised. I sang what came out of my head and wrote it down afterwards. And because it worked for that first record, that's what I've always done. When I'm singing along the phrases come out."

For Driving The Last Spike, from the 1991 Genesis album We Can't Dance, Collins went the extra step of doing some research. The song takes an epic look at the dangers and hardships that went into the construction of the British railway system during the 19th century, told from the point of view of a workman who took part in that process. "To write 'Driving the Last Spike,' I ended up getting hold of a book about the navvies," Collins said. ["Navvy" is a British term for an unskilled manual laborer, particularly someone who builds roads, canals, and railroads.] He elaborated in an interview with Music Express Magazine [via genesis-path.net]:

The song's working title was "Irish," and that came from me making up words and phrases as I listened to the music...There's an Irish-sounding bit in the arrangement, so I thought about labourers and the working class. And then as I browsed through a book called The Railway Navvies, I formulated this idea about the Irish workers who helped build the British railway system at the turn of the century. I mean, when you're on a train and you're looking out of the window, you don't think about being 150 feet up in the air on a viaduct between two hills and how the track actually got there!

"I don't know why but I just thought there was a story to be told there," Collins says of the song in Genesis: Chapter and Verse. "And that was one of only a few story lyrics I ever wrote."

Make Love Stay/Dan Fogelberg

2010-07-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

In his 1980 novel Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins establishes a key theme early in the book in a neatly self-referential passage from Chapter 2:

     Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
     Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
     Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
     There is only one serious question. And that is:
     Who knows how to make love stay?

The late Dan Fogelberg picked up on that theme in his song Make Love Stay, one of two new songs that appeared on his 1982 Greatest Hits album. In the liner notes he dedicated the song to "Dr. Robbins and the Woodpecker" (Dr. Robbins refers to the author as well as to a character from Robbins' 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), and later described the song as a "sinuous piece written around a chapter of Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker." The song employs many images from the book, including moonlight, mystery, and fire.

Fogelberg, who died in 2007, was an admitted fan of literature. "I love reading," he said during a live MSN chat in 2000. "My favorite writer is Jim Harrison. I am currently reading Sterling Hayden's wonderful autobiography Wanderer. I'm also trying to get to Tom Robbins' new novel. I've also read all the Patrick O'Brien books and the Hornblower series. Great stuff."

Submitted by Stacy Clopton Yates.

Still Life with Woodpecker (Kindle Edition)
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Kindle Edition)

Personal Jesus/Depeche Mode

2010-07-22T18:23:00.000-04:00

Depeche Mode's song Personal Jesus, from their 1990 album Violator, has been interpreted in a variety of ways--from an assault on organized religion to an endorsement of Christianity--and lyricist Martin Gore thinks that's just fine. "He never explains the lyrics at all," says bandmate Andy Fletcher in Jonathan Miller's 2003 book Stripped: Depeche Mode. "I've heard about ten different interpretations of 'Personal Jesus' and that's what Martin really likes. . . The lyrics are very ambiguous, so although it could have been controversial, in fact it turned out not to be at all. Most people thought it was a pro-Christian anthem, which wasn't intended."

As its inclusion in these pages suggests, the inspiration for "Personal Jesus" came from a book, but it's not The New Testament, as one might think. According to Gore--who opened up about the song in an interview with Spin Magazine--the unlikely inspiration was Priscilla Beaulieu Presley's book Elvis and Me, written with Sandra Harmon and published in 1985, which chronicles her relationship with her late ex-husband, Elvis Presley. Gore told Spin:

It's a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It's about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a god in some way. We play these god-like parts for people but no one is perfect, and that's not a very balanced view of someone is it?

In the book, Priscilla Presley writes of Elvis: "Over the years he became my father, husband, and very nearly God."

Stripped: Depeche Mode (Kindle Edition)

B.S. Johnson/The Pernice Brothers

2010-07-14T16:56:00.000-04:00

When novelist, poet, and filmmaker B(ryan) S(tanley) Johnson committed suicide at the age of 40 in 1973, his obituary in The Times of London began this way:

B. S. Johnson . . . was one of the most naturally gifted writers of his generation. He was also one of the very small number to commit himself whole-heartedly to the experimental presentation of fiction. His Albert Angelo (1964) included carefully holed pages in order that readers might choose for themselves the order in which they received the writer’s words; The Unfortunates (1969) carried the pursuit of disintegration further by being printed and boxed in interchangeable sections. Throughout his career he believed that to adhere to the disciplines of conventional form was to risk the distortion of truth.

The Pernice Brothers' 2006 album Live a Little includes a tribute to the late writer called B.S. Johnson. Stereogum quotes Joe Pernice describing the song this way:

"B.S. Johnson" is simply an homage to the late great writer of the same name. It's safe to say that he was not/is not widely read here in America, but he should be. My brother is a pretty bright guy. He's read a couple books, and upon seeing the title, thought I'd created a fictional character, a Walter Mitty type named Bullshit Johnson. I told him I had, but that's for the next record.

Jonathan Coe (a master in his own right), upon hearing the song, emailed to let me know I'd managed to sum up BSJ's life in two minutes, twenty-two seconds, and that it took him 500 pages to do so in his spectacular bio of B.S. called Like A Fiery Elephant.

Incidentally, Joe Pernice is an author in his own right, having published a collection of poetry called Two Blind Pigeons in 2001; a consideration of a classic album, The Smiths' Meat Is Murder, in 2003; and a novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop, published last year.

For the 50th Anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus/The Noisettes, and more

2010-07-08T07:00:00.002-04:00

This Sunday, July 11th, marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Set in a small Alabama town during the Depression, the story concerns Scout and Jem, two young children living with their widowed father, attorney AtticusFinch. In the course of the novel the children indulge a fascination with their mysterious, reclusive, and somewhat frightening neighbor Boo Radley, while Atticus tries to defend Tom Robinson, a black manunjustly accused of rape. The book has sold about 40 million copies over the last five decades, has never been out of print, and is a fixture on students' required reading lists. The acclaimed 1962 film version is an acknowledged classic and gave Gregory Peck his only Academy Award, for his portrayal of Atticus.

To Kill a Mockingbird has also inspired some popular music, including the three songs featured here:

Atticus, by the Noisettes, from their 2009 album Wild Young Hearts, states its inspiration in the first line: To kill a mockingbird is/To silence the song that seduces you. As the title suggests, Atticus Finch provides the central image of the song, serving as a symbol of character and quiet courage from which the singer draws strength: I have no fear/I am Atticus now.

Each Year, from Ra Ra Riot's 2007 EP Ra Ra Riot, is also drawn from Lee's novel. "I had recently read To Kill a Mockingbird, which had a huge impact on me," says band member Wesley Miles," and John [Ryan Pike] and I talked a lot about it on our way down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Those experiences served as the lyrical inspiration." The racially tinged trial of Tom Robinson is alluded to in the line Coverin' a fault with trials and show displays. The song also addresses another focus of the book, the children's relationship with Boo Radley, a figure only glimpsed through a window because his abusive father keeps him locked up in the house: Silhouettes in a window frame/Better run if it's Boo's old man/He won't know if you're white/Oh, in the night. Other lines seem to allude to young Scout and her role model, the admirable Atticus: Never mind what your/Daughter is taught in school/What she remembers is/What she has learned from you.

Jem and Scout's fascination with Boo is also the focus of Bruce Hornsby's "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley," from his 1998 album Spirit Trail: They say he's crazy, they say he's gone/We play our tricks, make up funny songs/Sneaking around, feeling badly/Sneaking up on Boo Radley. The song depicts the kids creeping around the Radley house, trying to catch a gimpse of Boo, and conveys their mixed feelings about what they're doing: They say he's funny, got a loose screw/Stay away, he's a threat to you/Give him a break, what do we know/Might turn out we would like him so/We fear what we don't know. (In the novel, Boo comes to the children's aid at a crucial moment.) The lines Down the street, walking sadly/My little sister, loves him madly suggest the song is narrated by Jem. "I grew up on that novel," Hornsby said of To Kill a Mockingbird on NPR's "World Cafe." A live version of Sneaking Up On Boo Radley appears on Hornsby's 2000 album Here Come the Noise Makers.

In addition to inspiring songs, To Kill a Mockingbird has also provided names for such bands as Atticus and The Boo Radleys.

Finally, if you're looking for music to read To Kill a Mockingbird by, you couldn't do better than Elmer Bernstein's evocative original film score, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

For the Anniversary of Gettysburg: Dixieland/Steve Earle

2010-06-30T00:01:00.002-04:00

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought 147 years ago this week, July 1-3, 1863. It produced the largest number of casualties of any battle of the Civil War, and is considered a turning point in that conflict because it represented the "high-water mark" for the Confederacy--the northernmost point the South reached before being turned back by the Union Army.

Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, published in 1974, meticulously recreates the battle through the thoughts, actions, and impressions of the men who took part. Though his treatment is fictional, Shaara strove for scrupulous accuracy (his book served as the basis for Ted Turner's epic 1993 film Gettysburg). All of the major characters in the book are historical figures, with one exception--Private Buster Kilrain, an Irishman serving under Col. Joshua Chamberlain in the 20th Regiment of Infantry, Maine Volunteers. Kilrain is the only fictional character in The Killer Angels, and his surname appears to be derived from the book's title.

Kilrain turns up in Steve Earle's song Dixieland, from his 1999 album The Mountain, recorded with the Del McCoury Band. As Earle himself put it: "I stole this character from the late Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, the best Civil War novel I've ever read." Earle captures Kilrain's spirit and his devotion to his commanding officer:

I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and we fight for Chamberlain
'Cause he stood right with us when the Johnnies came like a banshee on the wind
When the smoke cleared out of Gettysburg many a mother wept
For many a good boy died there, sure, and the air smelted just like death

Earle's lyric also paraphrases at least one line directly from the text of the novel: I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and I damn all gentlemen. In the book Kilrain tells Chamberlain: "I'm Kilrain, and I God damn all gentlemen."

Earle did take some liberties with the character, however. Writing about the song in The Civil War in American Culture, Will Kaufman notes: "Earle gives Kilrain a striking political history not written into the novel: fleeing County Clare under a British death sentence for Fenianism, he arrives in America to join Joshua Chamberlain's Twentieth Maine Regiment." Michael Shaara's son Jeff provided a somewhat different background for Kilrain (for one thing, he comes from Belfast) in a 1996 follow-up novel called Gods and Generals, which serves as a prequel to The Killer Angels.

Earle's song also suggests that Kilrain survives the Battle of Gettysburg, as Kaufman notes: "After Gettysburg, Kilrain prepares to march on 'Dixieland' with the vengeance of a John Brown." In fact, Buster Kilrain dies in The Killer Angels on July 3rd, 1863, from wounds sustained during the action at Little Round Top.

The Killer Angels (Kindle Edition)

Nice, Nice, Very Nice/Ambrosia

2010-06-24T00:01:00.003-04:00

In The Life of Fiction, Jerome Klinkowitz points out that "in 1975, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. became the first American writer to be quoted by a starting pitcher in the World Series while at the same time having a song in the Top Forty." The pitcher was Bill "Spaceman" Lee of the Boston Red Sox (among other things, he cited "In nonsense is strength" from Vonnegut's 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions). The song was Nice, Nice, Very Nice by Ambrosia, from their self-titled 1975 debut album. The lyrics are adapted from Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle.

In the book Vonnegut created Bokononism, a religious movement indigenous to the poverty-stricken Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, where much of the action takes place. Bokononism teaches that all religions are based on lies--especially Bokononism--but by embracing these harmless untruths (called foma by Bokononists) we can live some semblance of a good life. In keeping with its Caribbean origins, many of the key precepts of Bokononism are set down in the form of calypsos. The lyrics to "Nice, Nice, Very Nice" are drawn (with some embellishment) from the 53rd Calypso of Bokonon, as quoted in Chapter 2 of Cat's Cradle.

Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter in the jungle dark
Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen
They all fit together in the same machine
Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

Vonnegut was delighted with the song, and shared a writing credit with the band. Ambrosia founding member Joe Puerta told Classics Rock! in an email: "It was quite a thrill for me, being a huge Vonnegut fan, to share writing credits with one of America 's foremost writers."

In January 1976 Vonnegut wrote a letter to the band (addressed "Dear Ambrosia") in which he said:

I was at my daughter's house last night, and the radio was on. By God if the DJ didn't play our song, and say it was number ten in New York, and say how good you guys are in general. You can imagine the pleasure that gave me. Luck has played an enormous part in my life. Those who know pop music keep telling me how lucky I am to be tied in with you.

And I myself am crazy about our song, of course, but what do I know and why wouldn't I be?

This much I have always known, anyway: Music is the only art that's really worth a damn. I envy you guys.

The letter is reproduced in its entirety in Ambrosia's 1997 CD Anthology.

Cat's Cradle (Kindle Edition)

Submitted by Bob Hicks
With thanks to Joe Puerta

For Bloomsday: Rejoyce/Jefferson Airplane, and more

2010-06-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

All of the events in James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses take place on June 16th. To celebrate Bloomsday (so called after Joyce's protagonist, Leopold Bloom), here are some songs with ties to the book and the author.

Jefferson Airplane's Rejoyce, from their 1967 album After Bathing at Baxter's, is an homage to Ulysses and includes specific references to characters from the book, e.g.: Mulligan stew for Bloom/The only Jew in the room and Molly's gone to blazes/Boylan's crotch amazes (Mulligan is a rowdy medical student in the book; Bloom's wife Molly begins an affair with a character known as "Blazes" Boylan in the course of the novel).

Kate Bush's The Sensual World, from her 1989 album of the same name, is drawn from the 18th and final episode, or chapter, of the novel. Often referred to as Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, it recounts the largely unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness thoughts running through Molly's mind as she lies in bed at the end of the day. The song employs the conceit of Molly leaving the fictional setting of the novel behind and entering reality (Stepping out of the page into the sensual world). The Joyce estate denied Bush the right to use wording from the book, so she revised passages for the song.

Also drawn from Molly Bloom's Soliloquy is Amber's song Yes!, from her album Naked. The word "yes" both begins and ends the soliloquy, and is the final word in the book. The lyrics hew closely to Joyce's original, and repeat virtually word for word the closing lines of the novel: I put my arms around him, yes/And draw him down to me so he can feel my breast/And his heart was going like mad/I mean yes, I said yes, I will yes. No word on whether Amber got permission from the Joyce estate, or whether Kate Bush was ticked off about it.

The Florida band PopCanon recorded a song called Bloomsday for their 2000 album The Kingdom of Idiot Rock. It juxtaposes Bloomsday observances with images of a crucifixion. It would be nice to think the crucifixion was metaphorical, but the band insists it actually happened--part of a birthday celebration that got out of hand. (You can get the whole story here.) The lyrics include the lines: In the land of the Lotus-Eaters Leopold Bloom said/"Iron Nails Ran In"--a reference to Bloom's explanation of the notice INRI that was posted above Christ on the cross.

Songs called "Bloomsday" are also available from Four Men and a Dog (from the 2009 album Wallop The Spot), Andy West (from 2002's Rama 1), and the Plague Monkeys (from the 1999 album Surface Tension).

Lou Reed's song My House (making it's second appearance in these pages), from his 1982 album The Blue Mask, alludes to characters from Ulysses in describing Reed's relationship to his mentor, Delmore Schwartz: My Dedalus to your Bloom, was such a perfect wit.

Roger Waters, a co-founder of Pink Floyd, alludes to Ulysses' main character in the song "Flickering Flame," found on Flickering Flame: The Solo Years, Vol. 1, with the line: On a back seat in a court room/Sat Molly Malone and Leopold Bloom/Until the police came down with a new broom/And swept them clean.

Alan Munde has an instrumental called Molly Bloom, from the 2009 album Festival Favorites Revisited, that seems appropriate to the day.

A song called Golden Hair by another Pink Floyd co-founder, Syd Barrett--found on his 1969 solo album The Madcap Laughs--has lyrics taken verbatim from Joyce's poem Lean Out the Window.

In 2008, Fire Records released Chamber Music: James Joyce, in which a variety of alt-rock bands perform musical adaptations of all 36 of the poems featured in Joyce's 1907 collection Chamber Music.

Van Morrison's song "Summertime in England," from the 1980 album Common One, notes: And James Joyce wrote streams of consciousness books. Another Morrison song, Too Long In Exile, from the 1993 album of the same name, includes the lines: Too long in exile, been too long in exile/Just like James Joyce, baby.

Jimmy Buffett's If It All Falls Down, from 1986's Floridays, also mentions Joyce (My life's an open book/By James Joyce and Agatha Christie).

On the morbid side, we have James Joyce In Memoriam by Mikel Laboa (from 2005's Xoriek 17), and Looking for James Joyce's Grave by Andy White (from his 2000 album Andywhite.compilation). Individual listeners will have to decide if I Got Laid on James Joyce's Grave by Black 47 (from their 2000 release Trouble in the Land) strikes the proper note for their Bloomsday celebration.

Finally, Breathe by U2--from No Line On The Horizon, released in 2009--has no particular link to Joyce or Ulysses, but as the lyrics make clear, the song takes place on the 16th of June, a significant date for any Irish rock band.

For D-Day: The Longest Day/Iron Maiden

2010-06-05T18:52:00.008-04:00

For tomorrow's anniversary of D-Day--the Allied invasion of France during World War II that commenced on June 6th, 1944--we're featuring Iron Maiden's The Longest Day, from their 2006 album A Matter of Life and Death. The song's title and subject matter derive from Cornelius Ryan's bestselling 1959 account of the invasion, The Longest Day (as well as the 1962 film adaptation). The lyrics depict the brutal combat many soldiers experienced that day (The world's alight, the cliffs erupt in flame/No escape, remorseless shrapnel rains) and the terrible human toll (And we rush with the tide/All the water is red/With the blood of the dead). There is also a reference to Overlord, the codename for the Allied operation to liberate German-occupied Europe (Overlord, your master not your god). Ryan, who died in 1974, had something else in common with the band besides this song--he and Iron Maiden's drummer, Nicko McBrain, shared the same birthday: Today, June 5th--the eve of D-Day.

The Longest Day (Kindle Edition)

For Memorial Day: The Ballad of the Green Berets/SSgt. Barry Sadler

2010-05-30T15:57:00.003-04:00

In the early days of the Vietnam War, writer Robin Moore--perhaps best remembered today as the author of The French Connection--wanted to write a book about the first generation of America's Special Forces. Thanks to connections within the Kennedy Administration, Moore won the support and cooperation of the military and the United States government. (Moore's own dedication to the project may be measured by the fact that, at the age of thirty-seven, he agreed to undergo nearly a year of rigorous Special Forces training before being allowed to go into the field.) After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, however, the Pentagon came to be dominated by a faction that was deeply suspicious of elite units within the military--notably Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Arthur Sylvester. They objected to the idea that a civilian author had been given complete access in order to "glorify" the Special Forces. Despite their oppostion, Moore's book The Green Berets: The Amazing Story of the U.S. Army's Elite Special Forces Unit was published in 1965. For a variety of reasons, it was categorized as fiction, but Moore stood by the veracity of his account. "You will find in these pages many things that you will find hard to believe," he wrote. "Believe them. They happened this way. I changed details and names, but I did not change the basic truth." The Pentagon demanded that the publisher put a yellow band on the cover of the book reading "Fiction Stranger Than Fact?" and Sylvester--who had pulled Moore's security clearance just two weeks after President Kennedy's death--even went so far as to suggest that Moore be indicted and tried for revealing top secret information, though ultimately no legal action was taken. However, all this served to fuel publicity and The Green Berets became a bestseller. It was then that Moore met Barry Sadler, who was recovering from a leg wound suffered in Vietnam. In an Introduction to a 1999 reissue of the book, Moore writes:

When Special Forces medic Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler came to me with a tape he had made of his singing and twanging on a guitar The Ballad Of The Green Berets I helped Barry rewrite the words and found a professional to work on the music. We persuaded RCA Victor to record the song and have Barry sing it on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Ballad became an instant number one hit on the charts and the Green Beret were indeed glorified, to a point where my old nemesis at DoD, Arthur Sylvester, forced RCA not to let me write the copy on the album cover or mention my name. I was, however, the co-author of the song and they couldn't take my name off the label.

The song, released in 1966, specifically honors James Gabriel, Jr., a Green Beret who was executed by the Viet Cong in 1962. It is currently available on an album called Ballads of the Green Berets. Appropriately, a choral version of the Ballad was heard in The Green Berets, the 1968 film adaptation of Moore's book, co-directed by and starring John Wayne. Moore went on to write many other books on a variety of topics, but he maintained his associations with the Special Forces community--and enjoyed their respect--until his death in 2008.

The Green Berets (Kindle Edition)

For BookExpo America: Elvis at the Wheel/Al Stewart

2010-05-23T14:00:00.006-04:00

With the publishing industry trade show BookExpo America (BEA) poised to take over Manhattan for three days starting on Tuesday, we decided to see if we could find a song that somehow related to the book industry as well as to an individual book. We came up with Al Stewart's Elvis At The Wheel, from his 2008 CD Sparks of Ancient Light. The first stanza offers a sympathetic nod to a long-running issue in the publishing business, the plight of independent book stores:

There's an independent bookstore
The last one that remains
All the others you might look for
Have been eaten by the chains
They soldier on
No one cleans the window panes

Browsing in this embattled store, Stewart comes across a book that recounts a bizarre incident involving Elvis Presley: While driving through Arizona in 1965, the King sees the face of Joseph Stalin in a cloud formation, which then transforms itself into the face of Jesus Christ. This religious episode has been recounted in many Elvis biographies, but unfortunately Stewart neglects to identify just which book he's singing about. The source of the story appears to be Larry Geller, Presley's hair stylist-turned-spiritual advisor, who was present at the time. His first-person account can be found in Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, the second volume of Peter Guralnick's Elvis biography, published in 1999. (Guralnick's account of the incident draws heavily on Geller's own 1989 book If I Can Dream: Elvis' Own Story, written with Joel Spector and Patricia Romanowski, now out of print.) Stewart's song serves as a reminder that a bookstore is a great place to browse--you never know what kind of strange tales (or musical inspiration) you'll find.

Englishman in New York/Sting

2010-05-18T16:00:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday night, Sting opened the annual benefit concert for the Rainforest Fund, held at New York's Carnegie Hall, with Englishman In New York, a song from his 1987 album . . . Nothing Like the Sun. In the liner notes to the album, Sting explained:

I wrote "Englishman in New York" for a friend of mine who moved from London to New York in his early seventies to a small rented apartment in the Bowery at a time in his life when most people have settled down forever. He once told me over dinner that he looked forward to receiving his naturalization papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported. "What kind of crime?" I asked anxiously. "Oh, something glamorous, non-violent, with a dash of style," he replied. "Crime is so rarely glamorous these days."

Conspicuously, Sting neglected to identify his friend by name, but later acknowledged that the Englishman in question was author, lecturer and raconteur Quentin Crisp. Crisp's 1968 memoir The Naked Civil Servant--and the subsequent BBC television adaptation starring John Hurt--brought Crisp to prominence with its unflinching account of his early experiences as a male prostitute, his openly gay lifestyle, and his outrageous exhibitionism. Celebrated for his wit, Crisp became one of the most desirable dining companions of his day. He went on to write several more books and toured in a one-man show. He also started acting in television and films, and met Sting on the set of the 1985 film The Bride (in which Sting played Dr. Frankenstein). When it was first released, many assumed "Englishman in New York," was about Sting himself, but as he explained to Rolling Stone in 1988: "The song is about someone else. It's about Quentin Crisp. I think he is one of the most courageous men I've ever met, and one of the wittiest. He was flamboyantly gay at a time when it was physically dangerous to be gay. . . . It was my song to appreciate his singularity. But it's about me too." He also told Rock Express: "I didn't just want to be writing about myself as an alien. I wanted to write about Quentin, someone I admire. So it's not really about being gay. It's about being yourself, never conforming. That's what the song is really about." Crisp appears in the music video for the song, which was shot on location in New York. Sting also played a musical prank in the recording: "One of my favourite little jokes is from an 'Englishman In New York', where at one point we're playing 'God Save The Queen' in a minor key," he told Guitar Magazine. "It really tickles me but nobody else hears it!" [For a roundup of Sting's comments about Quentin Crisp and the song, see Crisperanto.org.] A 2009 follow-up TV movie about the latter part of Crisp's life--with John Hurt again playing the author--was called An Englishman in New York after Sting's song.

Celebrate Your Neanderthal DNA: A Trick of the Tail/Genesis

2010-05-13T16:00:00.003-04:00

Neanderthals made the news last week. Genetic researchers announced their discovery that Neanderthals, who died out about 30,000 years ago, mated with modern humans, settling once and for all the most salacious unanswered question in modern science. For people alive today who are descended from ancestors in Europe or Asia, this means that up to 4% of their genes are Neanderthal in origin. This got us thinking about William Golding's 1955 novel The Inheritors, which depicts the final encounter between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and the end of the Neanderthal line. (It was reportedly Golding's favorite of all his books, and that includes the classic Lord of the Flies.) It also got us humming the Genesis song A Trick Of The Tail, from their 1976 album of the same name, which was inspired by Golding's novel. Genesis Forum Italia quotes band member Tony Banks: "I got the idea for the lyric after reading William Golding's The Inheritors. It's about a race who were on earth before man and it's the story of the last survivor of this race. The very last chapter deals with our reaction to him whereas the rest of the story is his reaction to us." The song's connection to the book is more thematic than literal. It isn't about cavemen; as Banks says, "It's about an alien with horns and a tail who appears in a modern city and how people react to him." We wonder if Banks might have been influenced as much by the book's cover art as by the book itself--when The Inheritors was first published, the jacket bore the image of a famous prehistoric cave painting known as The Sorcerer, which depicts a mysterious shamanistic figure with antlers and a tail. It's comforting to know that Neanderthals have a future, and not just because their genetic descendants are walking around today. Rumors abound that the new Iron Maiden album The Final Frontier, due later this summer, includes a track called "The Inheritors (William Golding)." This hasn't been officially confirmed, but consider this: The album is being produced and mixed by Kevin Shirley--aka The Caveman--and his Caveman Productions.

Of the Blue Colour of the Sky/OK Go

2010-05-11T00:01:00.002-04:00

Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky is the third studio album by OK Go, released by Capital Records in January of this year (and re-released last month on the band's own label, Paracadute Records, after their split with Capital/EMI). The name of the album is a fraction of the much longer title of an obscure book published in 1876: The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky: In Developing Animal and Vegetable Life; in Arresting Disease and in Restoring Health in Acute and Chronic Disorders to Human and Domestic Animals. This was a pseudoscientific treatise arguing that blue light rays from the sun, and the color blue in general, was beneficial to the growth of crops and to the health of human beings. The author, Augustus James Pleasonton, had known success as a general of the Union Army during the Civil War (which may explain his affinity for the color blue), but his theories never got any traction with the scientific community. The booklet accompanying the CD features a series of cryptic diagrams that "compare the album's lyrics to an excerpt of the book it is named after." (The specific excerpt is not identified.) Other graphs in the booklet "compare the lyrics with the entirety of Pleasonton's text." The diagrams were created by artist and designer Stefanie Posavec, working with her collaborator Greg McInerny. In an interview with the web site Made By Many, Posavec said: "The visuals were created through the analysis of themes, grammatical parts of speech, word syllable analysis, sentence length, and words common to both the lyrics and the book. . . . For the album cover Damian [lead singer Damian Kulash, Jr.] analysed the text and lyrics according to a set of key themes that were important to him..." [Samples of the diagrams can be seen on Posavec's web site.] The booklet offers further explanation of the CD's cover art: "The front cover displays themes common to the book and the album. Each line represents a sentence, with the album's lyrics fanning to the left and the text of the book fanning to the right. Each theme is represented by a color. For sentences dealing with multiple themes, the colors are added together as light is, such that each theme's color both lightens and tints the resultant line." OK? Go!

Lady Writer/Dire Straits

2010-05-04T00:01:00.004-04:00

At Classics Rock! we're celebrating our one-year anniversary with a song that appeals both to our occupation (book publicity) and our avocation (songs inspired by literature). Lady writer on the TV/Talk about the Virgin Mary/Reminded me of you, Mark Knopfler sings on Lady Writer, from the 1979 Dire Straits album Communiqué. In the song the narrator compares an ex-girlfriend unfavorably to an author he sees on a television talk show (Yeah she had another quality/The way you used to look/And I know you never read a book, he says at one point, and later: She knew all about a history/You couldn't hardly write your name). It's a song book publicists can embrace because it was inspired by an actual author interview Knopfler saw on TV. However, we could find no evidence that he ever identified the author. So who is it? The title of the song conveniently limits the pool of possible contenders to female authors, and a consensus has formed around one lady writer in particular. The song's reference to the Virgin Mary suggests strongly that the author in question was scholar, historian and mythographer Marina Warner. Her controversial book Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary came out in 1976, so she could have been promoting it on television around the time Knopfler was writing the song. What's more, Warner herself seems to believe "Lady Writer" refers to her: "When reminded of [the song], said lady writer breaks into peals of embarrassed laughter," wrote another lady writer from Time Magazine in a 1999 feature about Warner. "I guess that was me," Warner is quoted as saying. "I wish I could claim something of more distinction in terms of popular culture, but I don't know that I can." If Marina Warner is indeed the "Lady Writer," we are left with another mystery: Who's the unfortunate ex-girlfriend?

Alan Sillitoe 1928-2010: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not/Arctic Monkeys, and more

2010-04-25T21:12:00.026-04:00

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 Rubinstein

Where'er You Walk, from Handel's Semele, Bryn Terfel

Odes to Literary Volcanoes: The Consul at Sunset/Jack Bruce, and More

2010-04-19T00:01:00.006-04:00

When news broke that a giant ash cloud caused by the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull was disrupting air traffic throughout Europe, the first thing we thought of was Jimmy Buffett's song Volcano. For all those publishing folks who are now grounded and will not be able to attend the London Book Fair, which starts today, the lyrics I don't know where I'm a gonna go/When the volcano blow seemed quite apropos. However, there's no book associated with Buffett's ditty (though he himself is an accomplished author), and since we deal in songs about books, we thought we'd see if we could find any songs that were inspired by works of literature that feature volcanoes.

"The Consul at Sunset," from Jack Bruce's 1971 album Harmony Row, was inspired by Malcolm Lowry's semi-autobiographical novel Under the Volcano, 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, Back Room Of The Bar, from their 1987 album The Men Who Loved Music. 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.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel The Last Days of Pompeii 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 Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural Tastes in Modern America, 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, The Destruction of Pompeii and Nydia's Death, is a dramatic musical evocation of the volcanic eruption. According to Naxos.com, "Sousa often referred to the suite as his finest composition and programmed it more often than any of his other suites." A more recent composition inspired by Bulwer-Lytton, Michael Smith's witty song Last Day of Pompeii, available on his 1992 self-titled album, 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 The Last Days of Pompeii 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....

With so many references to J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece The Lord of the Rings in Led Zeppelin's songs [see our earlier post about Ramble On], we're surprised they never got around to writing one about Mount Doom, perhaps the most famous volcano in fiction. Also known as Orodruin and Amon Amarth in other tongues of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Mount Doom is the ultimate destination of the Fellowship of the Ring--the only place where the Hobbit Frodo Baggins can destroy the One Ring in order to bring about the fall of the evil Dark Lord Sauron. A composition entitled Mount Doom can be found on the 2003 compilation The One Ring: Music Inspired by The Lord of the Rings 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 Out of Time. Swiss pianist and composer Sylvia Courvoisier recorded a piece called Orodruin, which appears on the 2003 album Abaton. AllAboutJazz.com calls it "an obliquely conceived transportation to J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe." The metal bands Orodruin and Amon Amarth take their names from Tolkien's volcano; the latter features a song called Amon Amarth on their 1998 album Once Sent From the Golden Hall.

Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth 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 Journey to the Centre of the Earth retells Verne's story using a combination of music, song, and narration. In the album's first part, The Journey, 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, The Forest, 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 Return to the Centre of the Earth.]

By disrupting the London Book Fair, the angry volcano in Iceland could have an impact on the future of literature that's impossible to anticipate but which could be quite significant. So if anyone comes up with a song about it, we'll be happy to feature it here on Classics Rock! No doubt tunesmiths are already asking themselves: What rhymes with Eyjafjallajökull?

Under the Volcano (Kindle Edition)
The Last Days of Pompeii (Kindle Edition)
The Lord of the Rings (Kindle Edition)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Kindle Edition)

Be sure to test your knowledge of literary volcanoes with The Guardian's recent Volcanoes in Literature Quiz.

Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)/Elton John

2010-04-18T00:01:00.003-04:00

Through Sunday, Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Elton John's Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future), from his 1975 album Rock of the Westies, is about "the most successful comic character in the history of publishing in the United Kingdom," according to the official Dan Dare website. Dare is described as "a cool, suave, sophisticated man with a lively satirical wit. A brilliant pilot and true adventurer, ruthlessly dedicated to his profession." Created by illustrator Frank Hampson, Dan Dare first appeared in 1950 in the very first issue of the weekly British comic publication the Eagle and quickly became its flagship character. Dan has no superpowers but he is a highly skilled pilot and space navigator, exceptionally daring and resourceful. He spends most of his time dealing with extraterrestrial threats, notably his arch-nemesis The Mekon, one-time leader of the Treen, a lizard-like race of aliens from Venus. He's our flying ace, pilot of the future/In an endless space, holy cow Elton sings in admiration, but there's a sense that he's over Dan and ready to move on: So long captain Dan/I fail to see what motivates your hands/Goodbye restless night/You know I loved Dan Dare, but I couldn't make his flight. In the song's concluding lines, Elton reveals where his real sympathies lie: Dan Dare doesn't know it/Doesn't know it/Doesn't know it/But I like The Mekon. An abridged version of the song served as the closing theme of a 2002 Dan Dare television series.

Ring Capacity/Kirby Krackle

2010-04-17T00:01:00.002-04:00

Through Sunday, Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Kirby Krackle (who will be entertaining C2E2 attendees tonight at 8:00pm at Reggie's Rock Club, just blocks from the convention center) is a self-described nerd rock band from Seattle: "We're a band that writes about and from the perspective of comic books characters/nerd culture." Even their name derives from comics--it refers to a technique practiced by legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby that utilizes fields of dots in the depiction of energy bursts, explosions and so on. The song Ring Capacity, from the album E For Everyone, released last month, is about the superhero Green Lantern, created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell in 1940, and published by DC Comics. The Green Lantern refers to not one but several superheroes, all members of an interplanetary police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, which is administered by the extraterrestrial Guardians of the Universe. So which Green Lantern is the song about? The allusion to Guarding Twenty Eight Fourteen in the lyrics narrows the field to either Hal Jordan or John Stewart, the two Green Lanterns assigned to patrol Sector 2814 (the region of the universe where earth is located). Another reference points to Jordan as the figure in the song: the lines I see the man who's made me bleed/The one who taught me everything/A purple man obsessed with me/Soul lost to the dark and it's now extinct refer to Sinestro, once a teacher and mentor to Jordan who later turned to evil and became the mortal enemy of the Green Lanterns. The band confirms this interpretation on their blog: "The song chronicles a moment in time from the perspective of Green Lantern Hal Jordan after he is attacked in space by Sinestro." The title "Ring Capacity" refers to a special ring all Green Lanterns possess that grants them certain super powers and must be periodically recharged. The lyrics even incorporate the entire Green Lantern Oath, spoken by each Green Lantern since the 1940s: In brightest day, in blackest night/No evil shall escape my sight/Let those who worship evil's might/Beware my power, Green Lantern's light. [For another musical take on the Green Lantern Oath, see our earlier post about Camberwell Now's song Green Lantern.]

Aquaman's Lament/Mark Aaron James

2010-04-16T00:01:00.011-04:00

Through Sunday, Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Among the ranks of superheroes, Aquaman has always been something of a poor relation. Created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger in 1941, and periodically resurrected in various iterations since then by DC Comics, Aquaman frequently takes a ribbing for his less-than-awesome superpowers (he can breathe underwater...he can communicate with marine life...he's pretty strong...he can swim really fast...). What must be particularly galling for him is that he even has to play second fiddle to Batman, a guy with no superpowers whatsoever. Certainly that is the case in Mark Aaron James's song Aquaman's Lament, available on his 2008 album Just a Satellite. In the song, a bitter Aquaman pines for the affections of Vicki Vale, a Lois Lane-type character who turns up now and then in the Batman mythos as a potential love interest for Batman and/or Bruce Wayne (she was portrayed by Kim Basinger in the 1989 film Batman). The lyrics have Aquaman in his cups (having downed seven gin and tonics) and taking shot after shot at the Dark Knight: Have you ever had the notion/That he's just a rat with wings/I'm the king of 7 oceans/And Vicki you're my everything. Naturally he doesn't overlook the opportunity to call out Batman for his lack of superpowers: Well, I could understand/If he were Superman/After all that cat can fly/But take away that Batmobile/That boat, that belt, that butler/He's just another boring guy. Given Aquaman's perennial second-tier standing in the pantheon of superheroes, it's unlikely Ms. Vale will be moved.

Superman (It's Not Easy)/Five For Fighting

2010-04-15T00:01:00.022-04:00

Now through Sunday, Classics Rock! will feature songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Superman (It's Not Easy), from the 2000 album America Town by Five For Fighting (stage name of singer/songwriter John Ondrasik), presents the more vulnerable side of Superman, the comic book hero created in 1932 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. This is a superhero who wants us to see his sensitive side: I'm more than a bird...I'm more than a plane/I'm more than some pretty face beside a train/It's not easy to be me. He takes no joy in his super powers--I can't stand to fly, he states--and feels the same sense of longing that ordinary mortals do: I'm only a man in a funny red sheet/I'm only a man looking for a dream. The song became a breakthrough hit for Ondrasik, and had particular resonance for audiences following the September 11th attacks. "Already climbing the charts prior to 9/11, 'Superman' went on to have a life of its own, becoming a song of healing for the nation," according to the Five For Fighting web site. "While written and released well before 9/11, 'Superman' has endeared Ondrasik to the survivors and families of those lost in that tragedy, as well as to servicemen serving around the world."

The Janitor's Boy/Natalie Merchant

2010-04-13T00:01:00.006-04:00

Natalie Merchant refuses to classify her new album Leave Your Sleep, released today, as a children's album. "It's a thematic record that was inspired by the whole experience I had of having a child and being in the company of children," Merchant told Granta in a video interview, "but...it's about motherhood too, and that pretty much sums up humanity. It's about being human." Merchant started the project as a gift to her own daughter, and all the songs on the album have to do with childhood. Instead of writing her own lyrics, she set to music poems from the 19th and 20th centuries that were written about, for, or by children. One poem that satisfies all those criteria is Nathalia Crane's The Janitor's Boy "The most exciting discovery to me was Nathalia Crane, who was only a 10-year-old girl [in 1924]," Merchant told Granta. "She submitted poetry to a local newspaper in New York and the poetry editor invited her in, and she came with her mother, of course. The editor assumed the mother was the author, and when he found out it was the child he published her poetry and her photograph, and it was picked up and syndicated throughout the country and she became an overnight sensation. She published nine books by the time she was 16." The first of these was The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems. Merchant worked with the Wynton Marsalis Quintet to create an authentic jazz ambiance for the song that is appropriate to the poem's era. Other poets featured on the album range from the iconic to the obscure: Edward Lear, Charles Causley, Jack Prelutsky, Mervyn Peake, Albert Bigelow Paine, Williaim Brighty Rands, Laurence Alma-Tadema, John Godgrey-Saxe, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many others. The album features 26 songs in all, but Selections from the Album Leave Your Sleep, an abridged version featuring 16 tracks, is also available.

Ender Will Save Us All/Dashboard Confessional

2010-04-07T00:01:00.002-04:00

You may hear a couple of different stories about the origins of the Dashboard Confessional song Ender Will Save Us All, originally recorded for their 2000 debut album The Swiss Army Romance and re-recorded for the 2002 EP Summers Kiss. Some believe the song is closely based on Orson Scott Card's 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game, and draw comparisons between the lyrics and Card's story of a young boy who is inducted into a mysterious program in which he must play simulated war games against a hostile alien race. Others believe the song is about how lead singer Chris Carrabba and a close friend had drifted apart, and how their friendship was saved by a shared affection for Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book. However, in an interview with Blender.com, Carrabba explained that the connection to the novel is far more tangential: "I remember I was given a book called Ender’s Game, which I love; I went on to read the whole series. And then I wrote a song that came at the end of our set, so it was called 'Ender' before it was officially titled. One night, my friend Amy was making fun of each of the songs on the set list. She wrote 'Ender will save us all.' I went on to title the song that because it was so funny." Spoiler alert: In the novel, Ender does save the world. However, part of the humor also lies in the fact that Carrabba's middle name is Ender. "Not entirely sure what it means," he said when asked about the significance of the name. "That's someone else's story to tell."