Bookchat: Books and music

Welcome to Bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne (who performs as Hozier) has a new album coming out in August, inspired by the pandemic and Dante’s Inferno. This got me thinking about books that have inspired music, especially since I’ll be one of the rotating hosts of the Saturday Night Music diary. And hey, if anyone wants to join in, pop into that diary on Saturday and speak up — the more rotating hosts, the merrier. (I’m hosting, not this Saturday but next — but do come by on Saturday and see what this host has come up with) Anyway, back to Hozier. I’ve read several interviews about the new album, and apparently during the lockdown, he got very into epic poetry. His new songs are, as I said, based on the Inferno and on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. If you’re not out of free articles from Vanity Fair, this one is interesting. He wrote one of the new songs after hearing Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy talk about systemic oppression of women (it’s called Swan Upon Leda, another call back to myth). And then there’s this:

It has been a really, really long time since I read Dante, and I probably read something by Ovid in high school, but I don’t feel comfortable judging Mr. Byrne’s interpretation of either. I am impressed that that’s how he spent his lockdown time. I am absolutely obsessed with Francesca, which is about lovers who are in the second circle of Hell, for lust. Hozier sings as Francesca’s lover, Paolo and belts out that it was totally worth it and he would do it all again.

Jimi Hendrix was a science fiction fan — and one of his biggest hits, Purple Haze, references Philip Jose Farmer’s Night of Light. According to this article, there were many other references in his music. I loved finding out that he was a fellow SFF fan, wish he’d been able to write more.

Just in searching, there are so many books that have inspired musicians. Alice in Wonderland alone inspired everyone from Jefferson Airplane to Tom Petty, Lady Gaga, the Beatles and others.

Tolkein’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (and the Silmarillion) have inspired hundreds of songs, here’s Brecht’s favorite: Led Zeppelin – Ramble On.  And when he mentioned The Master and Margarita, I knew I’d read something about a song or songs based on it, but I can’t remember what it was. So here is Brecht’s pick: Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil.

I remember the controversy around The Cure’s Killing An Arab.  Robert Smith based it on Albert Camus’s The Stranger, and I was living in Algeria. Actually, living there meant I only heard the controversy every now & then. But I read the book, I felt if I was going to live there I should.

Kate Bush has been introduced to a new generation of fans because her song Running Up the Hill being used in a streaming show, but for our purposes: Wuthering Heights.

And I have to be really impressed by a band basing a song on Dostoevsky, even on a novella. So here’s another suggestion from Brecht — with his note about it:

Magazine — A Song From Under The Floorboards: Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. No video for that last one, but it gets bonus points for nutshelling the whole spirit of the novella into 4 minutes.

And of course I can’t talk about music without talking about U2. From their very first album, they were referencing Blake in the lyrics, and the latest 2 albums got their titles from his poetry collections. Oscar Wilde and James Joyce also make frequent appearances. Exit was inspired by Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, it is probably their darkest song. And then there’s Until The End Of The World, inspired by a book by Irish poet Brendan Kennelly called The Book of Judas — writing from his point of view. They literally wrote a song with Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet not just influenced by but directly taken from his novel.  And a good half (3/4th maybe) of their songs have biblical allusions…..

I’m sure I’ve missed a ton of books that have inspired music, so if you’ve been yelling a title while reading this, put it in a comment below. Or just whatever you’re reading, want to read, etc.

Finally, it seems wrong to have a book diary and not note the passing of two giants in the world of books. Julie Garwood was a beloved author, and the tweet below is representative of the ones I’ve seen by authors — she inspired many to write:

And Cormac McCarthy. So much has been said about his death, this seemed to somewhat sum it up:

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