Songs named after literary works

Atrocity Exhibition by Joy Division, after Jim Ballard's story.

Dunno if The Primitives were thinking of Ballard when they wrote Crash, but I'll throw that in anyway.

From a neighbouring thread, Tangerine Dream and Phaedra.

Were Deep Purple thinking of Michael Moorcock with Stormbringer?

Echo and The Bunnymen with White Devil, which also references The Duchess of Malfi (-aaaaah), by Webster.

 

And to stand the premise on its head, Moorcock wrote Time of The Hawklords, which had Hawkwind as the "heroes".

 

If one wishes to head off into a more folky vein, someone like Dick Gaughan has done loads of settings of Scottish poetry, especially Burns but also the likes of Hamish Henderson (No Gods and Precious Few Heroes or 51st (Highland) Division's Farewell to Sicilly); The Wraiths' album Welcome, Stranger, To This Place consists of poem settings from the likes of Blake, Walter De La Mare, Emily Dickinson, Tennyson, Keats and others; Johnny Dickinson's Border Ballads is taken from Swinburne's, errrrr, Border Ballads, being settings of several of them.

 

Donovan - Under the Greenwood Tree

Not only does it have the same title as the poem by William Shakespeare, almost all the lyrics consist of the poem itself, quoted verbatim.

 

Fitzgerald and Browne apparently both prophesied the advent of that popular social media "hookup" application.

 

Worth noting that the band themselves were named after a Camus novel.

 

"A Rose For Emily" by the Zombies is based on a same named short story by William Faulkner.

 

"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" was a book by Carson McCullers (1940, film version 1968) and later an unrelated song that was a #1 country hit by Reba McEntire in 1995.

 

"The Right Stuff" was a book by Tom Wolfe (1979, movie version 1983) and later a song by Bryan Ferry (1987), a different song by Vanessa Williams (1988), and yet another song by New Kids on the Block (1989) -- the latter had its title changed to "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" for single release.

 

and the reverse - a book named after a song

 

Boo,forever is named after a poem by Richard Brautigan
The Boo Radleys were named after a character from Harper Lee's novel To kill a mockingbird
The band's first album Ichabod and I was named after the main character Ichabod Crane in Washington Irving's The legend of Sleepy Hollow

 

this is quite fascinating

 

Tonight At Noon - song by The Jam, poem by Adrian Henri (who later received a credit on the song)

 

The thread-starter mentioned Orwell's 1984 and said some songs were inspired directly by it and some were not.

I believe the two earliest examples definitely were. At the time, the year 1984 had no particular significance that wasn't associated with the novel.

These examples were "1984" by The Holy Mackerel (an early Paul Williams group), which was released ca. 1968 — and "1984" by Spirit, a non-LP single released in late 1969.

 

"Lust for Life," a 1934 novel by Irving Stone (1956 film version), was one of Iggy Pop's best-known songs (1977).

 

While a member of The Byrds, David Crosby wrote a song called "Stranger in a Strange Land." The band recorded it, but it wasn't released until many years later.

 

"Games People Play," a 1964 best-selling book by Eric Berne, was followed by hit songs of the same name by Joe South (1969), The Spinners (1975, title changed for legal reasons to "They Just Can't Stop It the (Games People Play)"), and the Alan Parsons Project (1981).

 

Emerald City is from The Wizard of Oz

 

Referencing of course the book by Robert Heinlein, a book I enjoyed immensely when I first read it.

Not long ago I read it again, and found it lame, a trifle silly, and quite cringey in spots. I think I have become more socially aware since I first read it. His attitudes towards women were at best patronising, and at times downright disrespectful. He was definitely a man of his age.

 

The fountainhead by the Bluetones, named after Ayn Rand's novel (apparently lots of Rush's lyrics were influenced by Ayn Rand,too)

 

A Fairy Tale of New York was a 1973 book by J. P. Donleavy. The title directly inspired the title of "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl (1987):

 

Yeah, I also read Stranger in a Strange Land in the early 1970s when it was quite the rage on college campuses everywhere. I remember it being quite influential at the time, but I suspect my reaction might well be similar to yours if I reread it today.

I also read another Heinlein book referenced in this thread, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Funny how sometimes you retain one (often relatively insignificant) passage from a book when most of the rest of it has faded.

Apologies if I don't get this quite right, but as I recall, they had characters in that book known as "Fair Witnesses," who were often called upon to provide precise testimony in trials. One character was demonstrating how they operate, so he asked the Fair Witness "What color is that house up on the hill?"

The reply was "It's white on this side."

 

The song Steppenwolf by Lindisfarne was named after the novel by Hermann Hesse ( and of course the band Steppenwolf,too)
Santana's album Abraxas is named after the God Abraxas in Hesse's novel Demian , there is a quotation from the book on the back cover of the album