fiction files redux discussion
some music you have read
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Jennifer, hot tamale
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Mar 11, 2009 10:03AM
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So Kerry has you into NMH too? She should be paid for promoting them...!
OK. Hm. Well, the obvious rock and roll artists would be Dylan and Cohen. Maybe Joan Baez? But let me stretch a bit more. For now one immediately jumps to mind...
Concrete Blonde - inspired by Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, the song Bloodletting (they do a nice cover of the Cohen song Everybody Knows)
The other stuff that comes to mind immediately are operas and ballets. Tristan und Isolde... Salome (both of which I saw recently)... Romeo & Juliet... I'm about to see Abduction from the Seraglio on Friday - but it looks like that's not based on any story I know of...
In ballet, Martha Graham's Clytemnestra comes to mind.
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"heathcliff, it's me, it's cathy, i've come home now!"
i used to sing the pat benatar version at the top of my lungs and wake up my housemate every morning. she told me she missed it -- later. :)
pretty sure moon over bourbon street by sting is inspired by the anne rice vampire books. he also punned on the canterbury tales for one of his albums, and of course, don't stand so close to me was inspired by lolita, while roxanne was inspired by cyrano de bergerac.
there's the relationship between the doors and huxley, jefferson airplane and alice in wonderland if we're going for super obvious. :)
i pulled out bloodletting last year and gave it a listen. still sounds pretty darn good. i remember first getting it in high school when joey became a hit single, and people saying is that a girl or a guy singing? ;)
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There goes 9 dollars and 99 more cents to Apple...
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hee hee. thought you might like that. :)
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All those cigarettes in college must have done the trick.
I do so love Concrete Blonde...!
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There goes 9 dollars and 99 more cents to Apple..."
romeo had juliet, lou reed. i love that one. :)
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i'm sure i've heard this song before - but i must admit i didn't know who jack kerouac was until 7 years ago or so. my friends and i didn't do all that much reading back then. i will look this one up. :)
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Here is the story via Wikipedia:
The Crane Wife is an old Japanese tale. While there are many variations of the tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After he releases the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife's diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cran...)
They also have a new album coming out this month which by description seems very literary oriented though I don't know of any corresponding tale. Here is the description also from wikipedia:
azards of Love tells the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake, who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came "to be living so easy and free" in the aforementioned "The Rake's Song". [Becky Stark and Shara Worden:] deliver the lead vocals for the female characters, while [Jim James, Robyn Hitchcock, and Rebecca Gates:] appear in supporting roles. The range of sounds reflects the characters' arcs, from the accordion's singsong lilt in "Isn't It a Lovely Night?" to the heavy metal thunder of "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haza...)
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no!
examples please, along with an analysis, the album and songwriter(s), year of release, and title, author, and page number of literary connection. :)
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Here is the story via Wikipedia:
The Crane Wife is an old Japanese tale. W..."
oh! i know this crane folk tale! it's a good one. never heard the song, though i've heard of the band.
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Never thought about it that way. But that may be why I harbor a crush on him. That and his voice.
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and hung his wild years
on a nail that he drove through
his wife's forehead
he sold used office furniture
out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a $30,000 loan
at 15 1/4 % and put down payment
on a little two bedroom place
his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
made good bloody marys
kept her mouth shut most of the time
had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind. They had a
thoroughly modern kitchen
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan
they were so happy
One night Frank was on his way home
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths
drank 'em in the car on his way
to the Shell station, he got a gallon of
gas in a can, drove home, doused
everything in the house, torched it,
parked across the street, laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red then
Frank put on a top forty station
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed north
Never could stand that dog
(bukowski wishes)
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no!
examples please, along with an analysis, the album and songwriter(s), year of release, and title, author, and page number of..."
well, ok. I'm no expert on heavy metal, but i do know that metal does borrow heavily from literature. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Metallica, for instance, is a song based on the novel. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden is basically just a metal rendition of the poem. I guess I can think of some more. Or make Ben do it.
Ben, think of some more literary metal songs for me, thanks!
message 21:
by
Ben, uneasy in a position of power; a yorkshire pudding
(last edited Mar 12, 2009 11:28AM)
(new)
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well, finishing up the metallica:
Metallica's "one" = dalton trumbo's johnny got his gun
metallica's "the thing that should not be" and "the call of ktulu" are in the h.p. lovecraft tradition (though "the call of ktulu" is instrumental)
metallica's "four horsemen" and "creeping death" are biblical.
and
metallica's piece-of-shit "don't tread on me" begins with a MUSICAL quote from west side story's "i want to live in america" (this is the exact moment when i stopped listening to metallica)
i don't really feel like getting into the rest of my metal history right now. maybe later. but i'll leave you with two words: aleister crowley.
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i'm totally with you. let's just say he's a new and infinitely improved version.
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these two words occurred to me as well but then i got bogged down with wondering whether it was really his literary influence on the music, or his mysticism -- i've never read any of his novels, myself. if you know which ones influenced what artists, i'd be interested. i guess i always thought they read about aleister crowley, not books by him. :)
and i thought of another one: tales of brave ulysses by cream based on the odyssey.
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i'm sure jimmy page read crowley. i'd be hard pressed to remember actual songs, though... i haven't put a zeppelin cd in for about 13 years... though oddly enough i just bought hammer of the gods the other day... lemme get back to you on this... don't his pants count?
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i'm sure jimmy page read crowley. i'..."
i'm pretty sure ozzy has never read crowley. as much as i love ozzy, i'm not sure he's a reader -- i know he was a dismal student, and some people have accused him of being illiterate. pretty sure he wasn't writing the lyrics to his songs at that point, if ever. i mean, he mispronounced crowley's name in the song! :)
as for jimmy page -- you're probably right about him actually reading crowley. i remember him being right into the occult for a while, if he isn't still. :)
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i think he's been casting spells to make his face wider.
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And green tea almost shot right out of my nose onto my screen!
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here's a somber one - how joy division got their name (from wiki) - "The House of Dolls is a 1955 novella by Ka-tzetnik 135633. The novella describes Joy Divisions, which were allegedly groups of Jewish women in the concentration camps during World War II who were kept for the sexual pleasure of Nazi soldiers." also, the song "no love lost" pulls from the novella.
and ben? where's your melvins? :)
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Oh no you don't! He's mine! ALL MINE!!!
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as far as i know, the melvins don't make literary references. most of the time they don't even seem to be speaking english. or, the words are english, but the sentences aren't? that's part of what i like about them; they're all feeling with no lyrical content.
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i just sang the song in my head and then pulled the album to confirm and it's got some mythic stuff, and a mention of looking to the west for rest, so i would say no. however another song on this same album, the battle of evermore definitely has allusions, and ramble on for led zep II has out and out references to gollum and mordor. :)
i knew the pilfering of my brother's record collection would come in handy some day. :)
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Oh no you don't! He's mine! ALL MINE!!!
"
i think lara might have something to say about that!
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Oh no you don't! He's mine! ALL MINE!!!
"
i think lara might ha..."
i think at this juncture i might need to pull out some muscle relaxants, and drop them in your drinks. nothing like a muscle relaxant and some red wine, to mellow things out. :)
I heard "Tom Sawyer" by Rush last week...hadn't heard it in a while and it's been stuck in my head ever since. As Neil Peart (drummer) writes, it's "a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. ...the themes of reconciling the boy and man...the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be."
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:)
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Kerry wrote: "Well I knew Zeppelin had some Tolkien in there somewhere! :)"
Zeppelin was all about Tolkien.
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Yeah, but Alice in Wonderland was pretty clearly about hallucinogens too...
There's a Tom Petty song I can't think of... damn.
There's a Tom Petty song I can't think of... damn."Don't Come Around Here No More"
I'm thinking of the pop oldie "Tin Man" by America. Would you think that pays homage to the book or the movie? Or are they too iconic to be separated?
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i think media tends to get all lumped together in our minds these days: for example, i'm not sure if shel was thinking of "don't come around here no more" as related to lit and tom petty but the song itself really has nothing to do with alice in wonderland -- it's just the music video that does. but that's the visual that's burned in our brains and inevitably associated with it. so i think for better or for worse, when most people picture dorothy they see judy garland. :)
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http://soundopinions.org/shownotes/20...
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John Allyn Smith Sails by Okkervil River is about the life and suicide of the confessional poet John Berryman (whose given name was John Allyn Smith, Berryman was his stepfather's name). The end of the song turns into a kind of re-working of the traditional folk song "Sloop John B" (ala The Beach Boys). It's an amazing song and is sung in the first person with John telling of his life and then suicide by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis.
Here are the lyrics:
By the second verse, dear friends
My head will burst, my life will end
So, I'd like to start this one off by saying
"Live and love"
I was young and at home in bed
And I was hanging on the words some poem said
In '31
I was impressionable
I was upsettable
I tried to make my breathing stop, my heart beat slow
So, when my mom and John came in, I would be cold
From a bridge on Washington Avenue, the year of 1972
Broke my bones and skull and it was memorable
It was half a second in, I was halfway down
Do you think I wanted to turn back around and teach a class
Where you kiss the ass that I've exposed to you?
And at the funeral, the University
Cried at three poems they'd present in place of a broken me
I was breaking in a case of suds
At the Brass Rail, a fall-down drunk with his tongue torn out and his balls removed
And I knew that my last lines were gone while stupidly I lingered on
Oh, but wise men know when it's time to go
And so I should, too
And so I fly into the brightest winter sun
Of this frozen town, I'm stripped down to move on
My friends, I'm gone
Well, I hear my father fall
And I hear my mother call
And I hear the others all whisper, "Come home"
I'm sorry to go
I loved you all so
But this is the worst trip I've ever been on
So, hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)
I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home
With a book in my hand
In the way I had planned
Well, this is the worst trip I've ever been on
Hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)
I'm full in my heart and my head and I wanna go home
With a book in each hand
(With a book in each hand)
In the way I had planned
(In the way I had planned)
I feel so broke up
I wanna go home
You can watch Okkervil River perform it live here. It's not a good picture, really dark, but the sound is the best I could find:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32s...
Patty mentioned Iron Maiden's version of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but in addition to that they have a huge catalog of literature related songs. Bruce Dickenson majored in English lit at Oxford. The book of Revelations pops up in Number of the Beast and Revelations, Baudelaire is referenced on one song off of the Piece of Mind album, Frank Herbert's Dune, and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land also make appearances. If I were closer to my music collection I'd give a better breakdown.More on the metal-lit connection: The band Mastodon put out the album Leviathan, which is essentially a metal retelling of Moby Dick.
. . . and I have to mention Bloodhag, as all of their songs are about their favorite Science fiction authors and their creations. Bloodhag also performs annual benefit concerts for Reading is Fundamental (yes, it still exists!) and throw out paperback sci-fi novels to their audiences at every concert.
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Apparently The Rolling Stones' Sympathy For the Devil was inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita!!!
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i just listened to okkervil river - what a great song
fiction files redux
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