At the time of writing the lyrics of that future hits or legendary song many artists took as inspiration some of their favorite readings as a way to combine denunciation and fiction, homage and reinvention.
Hence the list of songs inspired by books is longer than we could imagine, confirming 1984 or The Lord of the Rings as two of the most influential books of music of the last century.
David Bowie - Big Brother
The song by the recently deceased king of glamrock, from the Diamond Dog album, makes direct reference to George Orwell's classic 1984. At the same time, the song was going to be included in the play based on the famous book and it was never released.
The Cure - Killing an Arab
One The Cure's most controversial songs it made reference to the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, in which Meursault's character shot an Arab on a beach. The song was removed from more than one compilation of the group, causing great controversy after its publication in 1978. Possibly one of the least timely songs of the moment.
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
Fifteen years after the publication of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Robert Plant composed this song in honor of the epic saga of which he was a huge fan. The result was this Ramble On in which there were allusions to Mordor, Gollum and other references to Middle Earth. Other artists such as Enya or even Leonard Nimoy included songs inspired by the ring saga on their albums.
Jefferson Airplane - ReJoyce
In the middle of a revolutionary sixties the Jefferson Airplane group reimagined the work of Ulysses by James Joyce with this psychedelic version in which that of Mulligan stew for Bloom, the only Jew in the room.
Radiohead - Banana Co.
Included in the Pablo Honey album published in 1993, Banana Co. was inspired by that famous book in which the installation of a banana plant by the Americans forever changed the lives of the inhabitants of Macondo. The English group knew how to turn one of the moments from Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude into a perfect Anglo-Saxon metaphor.
These 5 songs inspired by books we discover the literary tastes of some of the most legendary artists of our time. An original way to turn long stories into peculiar audio stories.
What other book-inspired songs do you like?