10 literary works set to music

It’s not hard to find literary allusions in popular music. From the Tolkienesque imagery of Led Zeppelin songs like “The Battle for Evermore” and “Ramble On” to more obscure selections, like Laurie Anderson’s Pynchon-inspired “Gravity’s Angel,” they’re just about everywhere. Less common, though, are songs whose lyrics are taken directly from literary sources. Here are some of the best.

“Golden Hair” – Syd Barrett: This song comes from Barrett’s debut album, The Madcap Laughs, released shortly after his departure from Pink Floyd. The lyrics come from James Joyce’s “Poem V,” a selection from Chamber Music.

“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)” – The Doors: This Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill song was made popular by The Doors when it appeared on their self-titled debut in 1967. It was originally written for the short play Mahagonny-Songspiel (The Little Mahagonny).

“Home I’ll Never Be” – Tom Waits: Jack Kerouac, the beatnik icon and author of On the Road, penned the words to this song. It appears on Waits’ 2006 collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, which also features a song with lyrics taken from a Charles Bukowski poem.

“Annabel Lee” – Joan Baez: Composer Peter Schickele worked with Joan Baez in 1967 to produce an album of covers. Most of the songs are covers of then-popular tunes by Lennon/McCartney, Paul Simon and Jacques Brel, but Baez also included an odd duck: a recording of Edgar Allan Poe’s last poem, “Annabel Lee.”

“Sonnets/Unrealities XI” – Björk: The words to this song come from an E. E. Cummings poem called “it may not always be so; and i say.” It was released on Björk’s 2004 album Medúlla, described by Rolling Stone magazine as “the most extreme record Bjork has ever released and the most immediately accessible.”

“I Zimbra” – Talking Heads: The opening track to the Talking Heads’ landmark album Fear of Music, “I Zimbra” probably sounds to most people like David Byrne & Co. simply chanting nonsense phrases. Well, it’s sort of true. The words come from Hugo Ball’s dadaist poem “Gadji beri bimba.”

“Take This Waltz” – Leonard Cohen: The lyrics to this song, from 1988’s classic I’m Your Man album, are the English translation of Federico García Lorca’s poem “Pequeño vals vienés.” The poem originally appeared in Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York.

“Spell” – Patti Smith: Patti Smith has always acknowledged the influence of poetry on her music. “Spell,” from the album Peace and Noise, takes its lyrics from Allen Ginsberg’s “Footnote to Howl.”

“Amor mio, si muero y tu no mueres” – Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Peter Lieberson was in an Albuquerque airport when he found a book of Pablo Neruda’s love sonnets. Neruda Songs, released several years later, features Lieberson’s wife Lorraine singing a selection of the sonnets with the accompaniment of Peter’s music.

“The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs” – Hilde Torgersen & Bjørn Rabben: Yes, this is one of those John Cage pieces where someone sings while someone else taps on the lid of a closed piano. The words come from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

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