Sparks suicide pact gone awry song "Here In Heaven" Juliet, you broke our little pact Juliet, I'm never coming back Juliet, I thought we had agreed Now I know why you let me take the lead
Paul Kelly has a definite love for Shakespeare. There's the song 'Desdemona' (Othello) and the album Seven Sonnets and a Song where Kelly sets the bard to music.
Some of my favorite couplets didn't make the film version: If she then wants an all-by-herself night Let her rest ev’ry ‘leventh or “Twelfth Night.” If because of your heat she gets huffy Simply play on and “Lay on, Macduffy!” When your baby is pleading for pleasure Let her sample your “Measure For Measure.” Brush up your Shakespeare And they’ll all kowtow.
Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday She already is an old maid To her, death is quite romantic She wears an iron vest Her profession’s her religion Her sin is her lifelessness
Going slightly off topic here, the Band's "Ophelia" may or may not have a connection to Shakespeare's Ophelia. Also, the title of Harry Nilsson's "A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night" is adapted from a Henry V line: "A little touch of Harry in the night."
Badfinger's Pete Ham took the title of his song "We're For The Dark" from Shakespeare's play "Anthony and Cleopatra" in Act 5, and Scene 2 Iras: "Finish, good lady. The bright day is done, and we are for the dark." (Keith James, a Badfinger fan wrote about this in his 80's era Fanzines)
Billy Bragg - The Milkman of Human Kindness Opening track from his debut album "Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy", released in 1983 on Utility Records. "I am the milkman of human kindness I will leave an extra pint" Billy Bragg is referencing to William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth", where Lady Macbeth says: "Yet do I fear thy nature, It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way"
"Time out of mind" is in the Queen Mab speech of Romeo And Juliet though I learned on this forum that Shakespeare did not coin the phrase. So Steely Dan (song of same name) and Warren Zevon ("Accidentally Like A Martyr") used that phrase. Bob Dylan never wrote a song with that phrase and some say his use of the phrase as an album title was to pay back Steely Dan for using the phrase Can't Buy A Thrill.
The Smiths track You’ve Got Everything Now opens with the line “As merry as the days were long” which is a reference from the play Much Ado About Nothing.
Laurie Anderson quotes The Tempest (and Moby Dick) in the song The Blue Lagoon from the Mr. Heartbreak album: Full fathom five.....
One of Paul Westerberg's solo masterpieces, "Something in My Life is Missing": He writes like a midwestern Shakespeare In a tiny, perfect hand Doesn't so much move you as breaks you(r) Fall when you decide to land Really great lyrics here, and throughout the whole song. I wonder if he's talking about some fantasy image of himself? I love the way he has it both ways with the you/your of the third line going into the fourth. The man is a good writer.
Natalie Merchant - Ophelia Opening and title track from her second album, released in 1998 on Elektra Records. Natalie Merchant's song is a reference to Ophelia, the tragic character from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", who loses her mind and ends up drowning. "Help you to forget And help you to forget Ophelia's mind went wandering You'd wonder where she'd gone Through secret doors down corridors She wanders them alone All alone Fade to different spoken languages"
