A Literary Playlist

Introduction

I was listening to "The Village Green Preservation Society" by The Kinks and "Animal Farm" came on, and I got thinking of the many songs that shared their titles with often classic book titles so I thought that would be a good idea for a musical playlist.

Obviously, a few books inspired many songs, and the final one finishes with me singing one of the songs if you dare listen to it.

I do hope you enjoy my selections although there may be some glaring omissions but all these books and songs are part of my library and music collection, so it is a playlist I am happy with.

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

I will section this by starting with the book and then the song or songs that took their name from it.

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

Iron Maiden have taken a few books for their songs and "Lord of the Flies" is a perfect subject for the heavy metal genre. Probably not their greatest moment but still a crowd-pleaser.

"Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse

I had had this book for years as part of a classic collection and thought it was about time I actually read it. It's only about 200 pages and mine is translated from the original German, and I wrote about it in this peice here.

The novel provided the name for the American rock band who gave us, among other songs, "Born To Be Wild" but that does not fit in with the concept of this playlist.

However "Steppenwolf" by Hawkwind from "Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music" fits perfectly and this is another that references the spirit of the original novel.

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell

"Animal Farm" by The Kinks. A lovely song that is nothing like Orwell's dystopian nightmare. You can read about the parent album here.

"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville

Led Zeppelin's take on "Moby Dick" is essentially an excuse for a John Bonham drum solo, and the live is probably as ponderous as the Grate White Whale itself.

"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

A subdued intro for this Iron Maiden take on the Aldous Huxley title, but they don't stay quiet for long, and the foot is definitely on the metal accelerator.

"1984" by George Orwell

1984 is probably the archetypal dystopian novel and has been taken by many artists as a basis for their songs.

Former Soft Machine bass player had a complete album based on the novel with track titles based on the doublespeak of Big Brother. These are the tracks:

1 Miniluv

2 Minipax I

3 Minipax II

4 Minitrue

5 Miniplenty

6 Minitrue Reprise

When 1984 was still in the future, Spirit released their ominous take, which deserves its place in this playlist.

David Bowie designed the Nineteen Eighty Floor Show but could not get permission to incorporate the title so the album became "Diamond Dogs but kept the vicious Philadelphia Soul take on the song "1984", there is also the song "Big Brother" so there were lots from Orwell's book that crept into Bowie's production.

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte

Kate Bush's debut single is still a phenomenal piece of art, and I was surprised when Chris Ball suggested we covered it in Spoon because South Shields Band China Drum had covered it and we would do the same.

Kate's take actually utilises the characters and story frame of the book unlike many of the songs that I have shared in this playlist, but it is about the titles.

I found the disjointed sentence/phrase forms very difficult to get a handle on but you can hear whether you think it succeeded

China Drum

Spoon