Heartbreaking tales of these fleeting stars
The Lennon-McCartney song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' appears on the 1967 Beatles album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' It uses lots of psychedelic and fantastical imagery.
Prior to the album's release, there were rumors that it was a drug song. Lennon, however, attributed the song's imagery to his reading of Lewis Carroll's book 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.'
Katy Perry's 2010 hit 'Firework' draws its inspiration from Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' (1957). There are similarities between the lyrics and lines from the novel.
The influence of the novel on Perry's song is surprising to many, but she confirmed its importance during a red carpet interview at the 2012 Grammy Nominations.
Although it is perhaps an overstatement to attribute the entire Coldplay song 'Clocks' to the Friedrich von Schiller drama 'Wilhelm Tell' (1804), it certainly contains a reference.
The lyric "Shoot an apple off my head" is a reference to the point in the play where the archer Wilhelm Tell shoots an apple off his son's head to prove how skillful he is.
Perhaps the most famous song to be based on a novel is Kate Bush's debut single, 'Wuthering Heights' (1978). The song is based on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name.
The song is told from the point of view of Catherine, who visits her lover Heathcliff and asks him to let her in through the bedroom window.
The monumental success of Queen's 1975 epic song 'Bohemian Rhapsody' has made it a favorite for critics when it comes to guessing the meaning behind the lyrics.
While some believe the lyrics to be random, others think they are based on the 1942 Albert Camus novel 'The Stranger,' which tells the story of a man who confesses to an impulsive murder.
This 1980 hit song by The Police tells the story of the inappropriate relationship between a schoolgirl and her teacher.
The line "Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov" is an allusion to Vladimir Nabokov's controversial 1955 novel that tells a similar story.
Elton John's ballad 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' is about giving up a life of luxury for one of simplicity, and has clear links to L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.'
In the book, Dorothy and her friends follow the yellow brick road to find the magical wizard, but in the end they discover they had everything they wanted all along.
The Radiohead song 'Banana Co' appears on the band's second EP. It took its inspiration from the 1967 Gabriel García Márquez novel 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.'
The song takes imagery from the novel and uses it to describe the devastation brought to Latin America by banana companies during the 20th century.
Although it does not directly lift lines from the poem, the 2009 Thirty Seconds to Mars song 'Hurricane' is clearly influenced by the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem 'The Raven.'
The themes of anxiety, death, and lost love are present in both, and in fact the end of the uncut version of the music video directly quotes the poem.
There are a number of Led Zeppelin songs inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's epic series, 'The Lord of the Rings.' The 1969 song 'Ramble On' is one of them.
The song reimagines the journey taken by characters Sam and Frodo. In the song, it is a woman rather than a ring that is the object of the narrator's affections.
Mick Jagger cites two sources of inspiration for this 1968 Rolling Stones song: French poet Charles Baudelaire and Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov.
In parts of 'Sympathy for the Devil,' Jagger delivers the lyrics in a voice akin to the devil-like protagonist in Bulgakov's novel 'The Master and Margarita.'
'Animals' is actually a full album, rather than a song. When it was released by Pink Floyd in 1977, fans were shocked by just how politically charged the album's content was.
Loosely based on George Orwell's 1945 novella 'Animal Farm,' the album provides a social critique in which the different social classes are represented by animals.
There are a number of tracks on David Bowie's 1974 album 'Diamond Dogs' that are also influenced by George Orwell's 'Animal Farm.' 'We Are the Dead' is one of them.
The line "We are the dead" recurs throughout the story, and is thought to be a comment on both the repressed "inner and outer parties" and the imprisonment of the protagonist by the thought police.
Bloc Party's 'Song For Clay,' which appears on the band's 2007 album 'A Weekend in the City,' alludes to Bret Easton Ellis' 1985 novel 'Less Than Zero.'
Both pieces of work can be described as coming of age, and the references to social media in the song parallel the references to MTV culture in the book.
The song 'Atticus,' which appears on the second studio album from the Noisettes, 'Wild Young Hearts' (2009), takes its inspiration from Harper Lee's classic novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'
One of the main characters in Harper Lee's novel, Atticus, shows remarkable courage throughout the story and the song by the Noisettes uses his character as a metaphor for that courage.
Sources: (The Guardian) (Writers Write)
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MUSIC Literature
When it comes to literary references in other works of art, some are more overt than others. It is obvious to most, for example, that Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' takes its inspiration from the Emily Brontë novel of the same name. Less obvious, however, is that Katy Perry's 'Firework' has its origins in Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road.'
Intrigued? Check out this gallery to find out which famous songs were inspired by literature.