13 Examples of Literature in Song
It’s no real surprise that Wikipedia has a thorough list of these, but it’s interesting to parse through the many, and find a neat collection of songs and albums that were based on, or influenced by books. Led Zeppelin has a scatological lyric library referencing JRR Tolkien, but let’s see what else is out there.
13. Alan Parson’s Project – The album is called Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and includes interpretations of Edgar Allen Poe’s best, like “The Raven”, “Dr. Tar and Professor Feather”, and “The Cask of Amontillado.” Here’s the awesome “Dream Within A Dream” video. Also by Parsons: “I, Robot” (Isaac Asimov).
12. Rivendell (Rush) – A quiet, thematic representation of the Elf version of a Bed & Breakfast. (Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, of course.)
11. 2112 (Rush) - Side one* is loosely based on Anthem by Ayn Rand.
10. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica) - Based on the classic by Ernest Hemingway.
9. The Thing That Should Not Be and The Call of Cthulu (Metallica) - These guys really let good classic fiction influence their songwriting. We get not one, but two songs in honor of H.P. Lovecraft’s best character. Also by Metallica: “One”, based on the book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
8. The Small Print (Muse) - “clearly alluding to Goethe’s Faust, being sung from the point of view of the Devil to someone selling their soul to him in exchange for, presumably, musical prowess and fame…” source
7. Anthrax Loves Stephen King - As do a lot of bands like Pennywise (It). But Anthrax named one of their best albums Among the Living after King’s character Randall Flagg in The Stand. They also penned a song called “Skeleton in the Closet” based on King’s “Apt Pupil”.
6. Tom Sawyer (Rush) - Wow, Rush. Even “Red Barchetta” is based on a vague book called A Nice Morning Drive by Richard S. Foster. At least Tom Sawyer is pretty well known both as a song and a book. Who can resist the urge to sing along when Geddy Lee croons, “The River!”
5. Tales of Brave Ulysses (Cream) - Psychedelically sums up all you need to know about all the ins and outs of Homer’s The Odyssey. And I quote, “Tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers…” (This was actually a lyric inspired by lyricist Martin Sharp’s travels in Ibiza.) But the Sirens are there, so that’s cool.
4. The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen) - Based on The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Henry Fonda and Bruce Springsteen would have had some cool conversations, I bet.
3. White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) -Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Here’s a nice rendition of that song.
2. Animals (Pink Floyd) - It never actually occurred to me before, but an argument can be made that the Animals album, with it’s corrupt pigs (be they on the wing, or three different ones), dogs and sheep, political overtones… Yeah, it’s definitely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
1. Iron Maiden (Pretty much every song of theirs, ever) - At least a heavy handful. These Brit bad boys of metal must have had some scratched up library cards. Their adaptations include:
- Seventh Son, by Orson Scott Card (on the 7th Son of a 7th Son album, including all songs)
- Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
- Flight of Icarus (Mythology)
- The Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
- The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Alan Sillitoe)
- Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert A. Heinlen)
- To Tame a Land (Dune, Frank Herbert)
- The Trooper (The Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Tennyson)
- Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
- Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allen Poe)
On second thought, an honorable mention should be made for Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore”, as it pretty much describes the Battle of Pellennor Fields in The Return of the King.
(Iron Maiden illustration by Ado Cedric & Tio Julio.)
*For help with determining what this means, ask a grownup.
Comment (46)
Permalink
Please share:  email
this 
|
| Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies | ||
 |
 |
 |
See more Offbeat
Mints & Candies »  |
||
Your Neatorama Guide To The Hitchhiker's Guide
Technically, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should probably be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, as the book most certainly explores multiple galaxies, regardless of semantics though, the story is undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon. As a book, it has been translated into 30 languages and was voted the fourth most loved book in all of Britain.
In honor of the book’s 30th anniversary, which took place earlier this month, Neatorama is presenting you a collection of facts related to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Whether you’ve read the book, heard the radio broadcasts, seen the movie or seen the TV show, there’s certainly something here you don’t know yet.
What’s In A Name?
Fans often abbreviate The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as HHGTTG, but Adams uses the abbreviation of H2G2, which is also used on the official BBC online guide. Other nicknames can include “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” “The Guide” or “Hitchhiker’s.” To make matters more confusing, when people use the full name, they are sometimes referring to the series and sometimes referring to the fictional book the series was named after. Just to ensure you’re entirely confused I plan to use all of the names in this article.
Image Via Nicholas “Lord Gordon” [Flickr]
It’s As Multimedia As You Can Get
Fans of the series might know that the Guide started as a radio series (which technically makes H2G2 31 years old, since the first broadcast was 1978), which quickly spawned a series of 5 books, a TV show and a movie, but you may not know there were also a number of stage shows, a comic book adaptation and a computer game based on Hitchhiker’s. There was even a series of towels released with towel part of the first novel, which some fans consider to be the “official version” of the book (if you aren’t familiar with the works, then you may not know how important towels can be).
In other works, these adaptations would end up being watered-down, mediocre versions of the original that don’t reflect the artist’s actual vision. Fortunately, most of the adaptations involved with the HHGTTG were done by Douglas Adams himself.
Time To Celebrate
The H2G2 has even spawned its own holiday. May 25 in Towel Day. Towels are, after all, one of the most important things an interstellar traveler can have with them at any time. If you’re wondering how to celebrate Towel Day – why, just bring a towel with you all day, of course! There are even two sites dedicated to Towel Day, the countdown site, IsItTowelDay.com, and the informational site, TowelDay.org. Here at Neatorama, we’ve even covered towel day twice before.
Image Via JenT [Flickr]
In The Beginning, There Was Destruction
As mentioned above, the first incarnations of the Guide were in radio form. The first series actually was originally going to be called “The Ends of the Earth,” which was to be a six-part radio series. In each of the episodes, the story would end when the world ended – each time in a different way.
When Adams started writing the first episode, he realized he needed an alien there to provide context and the alien needed a reason to be on Earth. In coming up with this reason, he finally decided to have the alien be a researcher for a “wholly remarkable book,” which would be known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Eventually, the story ended up focusing on the book, which started up the whole crazy phenomenon.
Later on, Adams claimed that he had already came up with the idea of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” while hitchhiking through Europe in his youth.
Image Via Adam Foster Codefor [Flickr]
Sounds Good To Me
The series is notable for being the first BBC radio program to be produced in stereo and later in Dolby surround sound. Adams claimed he wanted the program’s production to be comparable to that of a rock album, and as a result, a lot of the program’s budget went towards sound effects.
Speaking of rock music, the tune used on the radio, television, LP and film versions was “Journey of the Sorcerer,” an instrumental Eagles’ song from the album One of These Nights.
The World’s Most Inaccurate Trilogy Series
The novels were originally released as a trilogy, but then Adams came out with So Long, And Thanks for All The Fish, making the books “a trilogy in four parts.” Then he released Mostly Harmless and the series became “a trilogy in five parts,” the cover of which advertised itself as “The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.” The blurb on the book went on to say, “the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘trilogy.’”
At this point, fans continued to be hopeful that the series would eventually become “a trilogy in six parts,” but Adams died of a heart attack in 2001 before a sixth book was finished. Before he passed though, he had hinted that the newest novel he was working on, The Salmon of Doubt, may have been this sixth book. He said in an interview that Mostly Harmless was “very bleak” and that he would love to finish the “trilogy” on a “slightly more upbeat note.”
Image Via Jenbooks [Flickr]
Inspired Inspirations
It’s only natural that any phenomenon as big as the Guide would have inspired some other works – of course, these works are particularly off-the-wall, just like the work that inspired them. Monty Python member Terry Jones actually wrote a novel, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic, based on Adam’s computer game, “Starship Titanic,” which was based on an idea in Life, the Universe and Everything.
In 2005, Michael Hanlon published The Science of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, which covered important topics such as the Babel fish, parallel universes and space tourism.
Remember Your Memorabilia
There was tons of merchandise made for Hitchhiker’s over the years. Some of the favorite memorabilia items, as mentioned above, were towels with the Guide’s entry for towels. Then there were the singles released by Stephen Moore sung in the character of Marvin, the Paranoid Android, “Marvin,” Metal Man,” Reasons To Be Miserable,” and “Marvin I Love You.” My favorite though, was the “Beeblebear,” a teddy bear with an extra arm and head like Zaphod Beeblebox.
Image Via ZoeARP [Flickr]
|
Comment (15)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The World Needs More Pooh
That’s the opinion of the Trustees of Pooh Properties, which manages the estates of author A. A. Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard. They have authorized a new sequel in the Pooh series. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood has generated some controversy among Pooh purists, who argue that the original books were about growing up and moving on, and that if the creators had wanted sequels they would have generated them…
“The whole point is that the boy has to go away from his childhood, from this very idyllic pastoral world of his childhood,” she said. “This is an absolutely perfect ending, and doing anything beyond this is pointless.”
The trustees of the estate believe the sequel will be true to the original…
“The good professor and other great lovers of Pooh will have to form their own conclusions,” Brown said. “And they may say, ‘oh, it’s not quite as good, it’s not quite the same.’ I can’t help that. All I can say is we tried very hard to do something that’s not offensive, shall we say.”
Jennifer Quinn of the AP has more details at the StarTribune. The BBC has a writeup on a new character – Lottie the Otter – created for the sequel. And The Guardian makes note in passing of the possibility that Pooh may have had OCD.
Image credit: Wikipedia.
|
Comment (3)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Can You Identify the Author of this Commonplace Book?
Artists use sketchbooks to store ideas for future use. Bloggers have folders of bookmarks. And some authors keep notebooks or “commonplace” books.
One well-known author recorded “ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use… for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on…”
In order to keep his/her identity secret for the few moments it will take you to peruse this post, we’ll use for a photo the family grouping at left without saying which one he/she is.
In 1934 the author presented the notebook to an R.H. Barlow “in exchange for an admirably neat typed copy from his skilled hand.” Several hundred selections from this commonplace book have been assembled at La Petite Claudine. I’ve winnowed the list down to just a dozen. Aficionados will recognize the writer immediately and can access the rest of the material at the link.
8 Hor. Sto. – Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.
31 Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.)
34 Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.
76 Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.
88 Lonely philosopher fond of cat. Hypnotises it—as it were—by repeatedly talking to it and looking at it. After his death the cat evinces signs of possessing his personality. N.B. He has trained cat, and leaves it to a friend, with instructions as to fitting a pen to its right fore paw by means of a harness. Later writes with deceased’s own handwriting.
106 A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.
112 Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food.
131 Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.
142 Members of witch-cult were buried face downward. Man investigates ancestor in family tomb and finds disquieting condition.
182 In ancient buried city a man finds a mouldering prehistoric document in English and in his own handwriting, telling an incredible tale. Voyage from present into past implied. Possible actualisation of this.
190 Primal mummy in museum—awakes and changes place with visitor.
217 Ancient (Roman? prehistoric?) stone bridge washed away by a (sudden and curious?) storm. Something liberated which had been sealed up in the masonry of years ago. Things happen.
Link. Photo via Chepachit.com.
|
Comment (21)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Poets Ranked by Beard Weight
A little-known leaflet by Upton Uxbridge Underwood circulated in 1913 judges men in a different way, not by their works, but by their fabulous facial hair.
His masterpiece, The Language of the Beard, an epicurean treat confected for the delectation of fellow bon vivants, vaunts the premise that the texture, contours, and growth patterns of a man’s beard indicate personality traits, aptitudes, and strengths and weaknesses of character. A spade beard, according to Underwood’s theories, may denote audacity and resolution, for example, while a forked, finely-downed beard signifies creativity and the gift of intuition, a bushy beard suggests generosity, and so on.
See 15 poets and their beards described and rated. Pictured is the highly-rated beard of Sidney Lanier. Link -Thanks, peacay!
|
Comment (2)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
| Neatorama Shop » Scientists Do It ... T-Shirts | ||
 |
 |
 |
See more Scientists
Do It T-Shirts »
|
||
Book Vases
Graduate designer Laura Cahill makes vases and furniture…from books. Cahill, who uses books from secondhand stores, found that old books are very difficult to recycle because of the glue used in the binding process. Instead of letting these old books collect dust or sit in a landfill, she uses a band saw to cut profiles from the tomes and wraps the spines around test tubes to form waterproof vases.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
|
Comment (3)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Yes, that’s right, just what you always wanted… apocalyptic horror in your Austen.
I know I’ll be ordering one for every middle school student I know.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.
Link Updated Link
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
Update 1/26/09 – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is written by Seth Grahame-Smith (and of course, Jane Austen) and published by Quirk Books (not Chronicle Books). By Quirk Book’s request, here is the book’s Amazon page: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
|
Comment (11)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The 100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th Century
In 2000, the publishing giant Random House assembled a board of authors and literary critics to list the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
The Zeray Gazette blog has the list (of which I reprinted the top 10) and I’m sad to say that I’ve only read 4 of these:
1. (1922) Ulysses James Joyce
2. (1925) The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. (1916) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
4. (1955) Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
5. (1932) Brave New World Aldous Huxley
6. (1929) The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
7. (1961) Catch-22 Joseph Heller
8. (1940) Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
9. (1913) Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
10. (1939) The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
How many of the 10 (and 100) have you read? And what’s missing from the list? Link
|
Comment (33)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
-
Your purchase helps support the blog - Thank you!
