Literary works alluded to in songs (and vice versa)

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Ya might be on to somethin'.
Mr. Dylan won the Noble Prize for a book of his lyrics, which
spanned from 1961 - 2012.
that's a big whale of a book, and maybe he feared receiving the prize for this monster would kill his creative life forever.
 
And is there a difference between Gardner's Grendel and the Beowulf Grendel monster? I haven't read the Gardner novel.
Gardner's Grendel was written from Grendel's point of view . Grendel relates people's actions with a sense of superiority, unable to comprehend their brutality, lust for murder or fear. It is a peculiar treatise on human hypocrisy and intolerance.
For those unfamiliar with the myth of Beowulf, the book may not be fully understood.
 
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Peter Hammill's "Ophelia" refers to the Shakespearean character Ophelia in Hamlet.


It's strange
How the feeling goes;
All change -
Down the river Ophelia goes.

john-everett-millais-ophelia-1851-52-tate.jpg
 


Besides the title, we wonder if there are other parallels to the 1932 Fallada novel about a nobody called Johannes Pinneberg and his daily mundane struggles to survive as an unemployed, like six million others, shortly before Hitler came to power. It's about the feelings, thoughts and experiences of this man.
The title of the novel has quickly become a well-known saying. Also in English? I don't know.
 
Ok , the last one for today ;)

Queen song from album The Works " called “Keep passing the open windows” refers to the phrase that comes from the John Irving novel The Hotel New Hampshire, published in 1981



hotel-new-hampshire-b-iext106138391.jpg
 
Dylan & Agatha Christie




:handpointdown:

Murder_Most_Foul_FilmPoster.jpeg


:handpointdown:

Mrs_McGinty%27s_Dead_US_First_Edition_Cover_1952.jpg
 
Gardner's Grendel was written from Grendel's point of view . Grendel relates people's actions with a sense of superiority, unable to comprehend their brutality, lust for murder or fear. It is a peculiar treatise on human hypocrisy and intolerance.
For those unfamiliar with the myth of Beowulf, the book may not be fully understood.
The perspective of Grendel sounds very intriguing.
 
Peter Hammill's "Ophelia" refers to the Shakespearean character Ophelia in Hamlet.


It's strange
How the feeling goes;
All change -
Down the river Ophelia goes.

john-everett-millais-ophelia-1851-52-tate.jpg

I like that song. There is some distorted Lou Reed in his voice.
 
Here is a vice versa example, i.e. a work of fiction that is alluding to a song.

Jimmy Cliff - The Harder they Come from 1972


and T.C. Boyle's The Harder they Come from 2015
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The Beatles song Tomorrow Never Knows is based on the Timothy Leary book
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based On The Tibetan Book Of The Dead.
John Lennon rephrased the lines “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float
downstream” as the openin' lyrics of the song.

Here we have Junior Parker doin' a cover version of the song...

 
are we talking about single references in a song or does the whole song have to encompass this literary work. because if we're just talking single references, then suedes "heroine" references Lord Byrons 'she walks in beauty' and suedes 'Barriers' references 'the heart is a lonely hunter'
 
Camper Van Beethoven's song All Her Favorite Fruit is based
on Thomas Pynchon's jumbo novel Gravity's Rainbow.
The characters in the song are based on the ill fated love story
of the books characters Roger Mexico and Jessica Swanlake.
The song and book are also filled with numerous fruit and
food references.


 
St. Vincent's song Severed Crossed Fingers was titled after a line in
the book Birds Of America by Lorrie Moore.

“He thinks of severed, crossed fingers found perfectly survived in the
wreckage of a local plane crash last year.”

 
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