The Persecution & Restoration of Dean Moriarty (On the Road)/Aztec Two-Step

This week Classics Rock! is observing Banned Books Week 2009 (September 26-October 3) by featuring songs based on frequently challenged books.

Aztec Two-Step's song The Persecution & Restoration of Dean Moriarty (On The Road), from their 1972 self-titled album, is an homage to Jack Kerouac's 1957 beat classic On the Road, and specifically to the character of Dean Moriarty. Although the book is classified as a novel, it is essentially autobiographical, based on road trips Kerouac made over a period of years and describing incidents involving such friends and fellow writers as Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. Kerouac used real names in his original manuscript (which he typed out on a 120-foot continuous scroll of paper) but his publisher insisted that the names be fictionalized. So, Kerouac became Sal Paradise, Ginsberg became Carlo Marx, Burroughs became Old Bull Lee, and Cassady became Dean Moriarty. "With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road," Kerouac writes in the book's opening paragraph, and Moriarty is very much the catalyst for what follows. The song depicts Moriarty as almost alarmingly free-spirited and unpredictable: Look at him running don't he know how to walk/He's just too damned cunning you can tell by his talk/You can tell he is rude, like a typical dude/If you want my opinion he belongs under lock. However, it ends on an admiring note: So relax for a moment as you would for your hobby/His beauty abounds in his mind and his body/He’s like the setting sun’s hues, or the dust on his shoes/He’s living he’s naughty, he’s Dean Moriarty, yeah.

I Should Be Allowed to Think/They Might Be Giants

The opening line of this song, found on TMBG's 1994 album John Henry, is from Allen Ginsberg's extended poem Howl: I saw the best minds of my generation/Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical. Variations of the line occur throughout the song: I saw the best bands of my generation/Applied by magic marker to drywall, and more directly, I was the worst hope of my generation/Destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical. The song sounds a bit like a resentful rant by an adolescent who's not allowed to glue a poster to the wall...but we'll leave the interpretation up to you.

Submitted by Ron Hogan

Hey Jack Kerouac/10,000 Maniacs

A song about the Beat Generation writers--"the San Francisco beat boys," as the lyrics have it--from 10,000 Maniacs' 1987 album In My Tribe. Jack Kerouac is front and center, but also featured are Allen Ginsberg (Allen baby, why so jaded?/Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded?) and William Burroughs (Billy, what a saint they've made you/just like Mary down in Mexico on All Souls' Day). Howl!