SHORTLIST: 25 Songs Inspired By Books

shortlist.com has a fun list of 25 songs that were inspired  by books.  What's even cooler -- the videos are embedded in the article, so you don't have to hunt them down.

Several of my favorite books were mentioned, authored by people like Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Below is from the article.  But the full post at shortlist.com is great.

PET SEMATARY

Artist/Song: Ramones – Pet Sematary (from 1989’s Brain Drain)
Book: Stephen King’s Pet Sematary
Lyrics: “Molars and fangs, the clicking of bones/Spirits moaning among the tombstones.”
Also: The Ramones’ Pet Sematary was written for the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. It was also covered by the German industrial metal band Rammstein.

THE ROCKET MAN

Artist/Song: Elton John – Rocket Man (from 1972’s Honky Chateau)
Book: Ray Bradbury’s The Rocket Man (short story)
Lyrics: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight.”
Also: Bernie Taupin’s lyrics condense the plot of Bradbury’s short story, which tells of an astronaut leaving his wife and son on a journey into space.

1984

Artist/Song: David Bowie – 1984, (from 1974’s Diamond Dogs)
Book: George Orwell’s 1984
Lyric: “They’ll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air/And tell that you’re eighty, but brother, you won’t care/Beware the savage jaw of 1984.”
Also: Other tracks on Diamond Dogs feature other Orwell references including the song titles Big Brother and We Are The Dead (Winston Smith’s final words before being captured by the thought police in the book). Bowie was intending to do a 1984 musical, though the project was killed off when Orwell’s widow objected.

LORD OF THE RINGS

Artist/Song: Led Zeppelin – Ramble On (from 1969’s Led Zeppelin II)
Book: Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings
Lyric: “'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor/I met a girl so fair/But Gollum, and the evil one crept up/And slipped away with her.”

PARADISE LOST

Artist/Song: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand (from 1994’s Let Love In)
Book: A poem, more specifically – the title is taken from John Milton’s Paradise Lost
Lyric: “On a gathering storm comes/a tall handsome man/in a dusty black coat with a red right hand”

BRAVE NEW  WORLD

Artist/Song: The Strokes – Soma (from 2001’s Is This It?)
Book: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
Lyric: “Soma is what they would take when/Hard times opened their eyes.”
Also: Soma is the name of a hallucinogen given in Huxley’s Brave New World – the drug is also referenced by the Smashing Pumpkins and deadmau5 in their songs of the same name.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Artist/Song: Rick Wakeman – Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (from the 1974 album)
Book: Jules Verne’s Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
Lyric: “Five days out on an infinite sea, they prayed for calm on an ocean free/But the surface of the water ws indicating some disturbance…”

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Artist/Song: Alt-J – Breezeblocks, from 2011’s An Awesome Wave
Book: Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are
Lyric: “Do you know where the wild things go? They go along to take your honey, la la la”

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Artist/Song: Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls (from 1984’s Ride The Lightning)
Book: Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls
Lyrics: “Men of five, still alive through the raging glow/Gone insane from this pain that they surely know.”
Also: The same book also inspired a Bee Gees song of the same name. Proof that literature doesn’t care how it sounds.