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.

Books That Have Stayed With You

image: firewireblog.com

I like METACHAT's "Books That Have Stayed With You," as well as the many responses.  The discussion is framed this way, "Five books that have stayed with you.  They don't have to be best sellers or well known. Just books you read that for one reason or other you never forgot."

One person posted:
1. Watership Down.
2. Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry.
3. All of the James Herriot books (All Creatures Great and Small, etc.)
4. The Crimson Petal and The White. by Michael Faber
5. The Stand, by Stephen King.

Let's do the same thing, but make two lists.  First books in general, then just 5 King books that will stay with you.

Non-King list:
1. Pillars of the earth
2. Cold Sassy Tree
3. 1984
4. Great Expectations
5. The Martian Chronicles

Five Stephen King Books That Have Stayed With Me:
1. The Stand
2. IT
3. The Shining
4. 11.22.63
5. Dolores Claiborne

Elizabeth Chadwick Includes King In BOOKS OF A LIFETIME

I enjoyed author Elizabeth Chadwick's post, "The Books of a Lifetime." She discusses books that stood out at various stages of her life.  A fun road trip probably all of us should  take.  I'm afraid that before Mr. King, I didn't actually finish many books!

Chadwick explains, "I have chosen five favourite books each from my childhood, my adolescence, young adulthood and maturity (if you can call it that)."

Naturally, Chadwick's choices are a mixture of classics and modern hits.  Stuff I'm familiar with, and some I didn't know existed.

Under the heading of Young Adult, Chadwick gives a short discussion of The Shining.  Here's what she wrote:

The Shining by Stephen King. This book is one of the very few where I have almost been too scared to turn the pages. Stephen King is a very powerful writer indeed and this story of a family falling apart and closed up for the winter in the haunted (and maliciously so) Overlook Hotel is a claustrophobic triumph. I re-read it at least once a year.

Wow!  That's pretty good.  I've read it through once, and just started re-reading in prep for Doctor Sleep.  She re-read's it "at least once a year."

Under the heading, Mature Adult, she includes The Green Mile.

The Green Mile by Stephen King. The second Stephen King on my list. I could carry on reading his work my life long. The Green Mile, I think, achieves absolute greatness for Stephen King. If the subject matter didn't involve horror and the supernatural, and if wasn't so mainstream and readable, this one would have been on The Booker list for sure. I'd certainly put it on my alternative Booker shortlist. There are lines in that book of such profound power that they bring tears to my eyes.

Chadwick's  full article is at historicaltapestry.blogspot.com

MY ANSWERS:

Okay, I have to clarify that I am discussing NOVELS and not religious works, The Bible, commentaries, devotionals and books that have given my life greater perspective, like The Purpose Driven Life.  Just fiction:

childhood: Fatal Vision.  I'm not kidding.  I read the whole thing when I was about 11 after seeing the mini-series.  It is the story of Dr. Jeffery MacDonald who is accused of killing his family.  

Also, Run Silent -- Run Deep, Star Wars (the novel by Lucas), V.

adolescence: 1984, by George Orwell.  I was first introduced to it as a radio play, then got the book abridged on tape. I found Orwell's world quite scary.  1984 is a precursor to The Hunger Games. 

Also, under adolescence, I  would include: The Martian Chronicles, The Stand, The War of the Worlds, IT, Night of the Moonbow, Sherlock Holmes and Swan Song. 

young adulthood: The Grapes of Wrath, which is absolutely wonderful!  A journey through America during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.  We travel with the Judd  family from Oklahoma to California.  Steinbeck is such an effective writer that the reader suffers with the Judd's, burning with anger as they are delivered set back after set back at the hands of a very cruel world.

Also under young adulthood: Pillars of the Earth, Of Mice and Men, David Copperfield (though I'm still not sure what that book was actually about), The Pelican Brief, Cold Sassy Tree, This Present Darkness.

maturity: . . . riiight.

Your Turn! using the same setup Chadwick did, copy and paste in the comments section your answers:

childhood 

adolescence

young adulthood 

maturity