Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Books that Inspire Songs


A friend of mine sent me this link called Artists for Literacy. Basically, its a site that lists songs inspired by a particular books. It's facinating. And terribly fun.

Like did you know the novel Frankenstein inspired Bob Dylan to compose 'All Along the Watchtower'?

Kate Bush was obviously so impressed with Bronte, she wrote a song called 'Wuthering Heights'. And one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, moved Steve Hackett, he wrote the song 'Narnia'.

I was not very impressed to find no matches for Jane Austen. What is up with that? The only redeeming factor for these songwriters' oversight is a number of artist were influenced by J.R.R Tolkien. Now we're talking!

So, if I were a songwriter (stop laughing at that thought!), I'd be inspired by Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien and Shannon Hale (after all, her writing is gorgeous).

How about you?

Picture by Alexey Arkhipov

7 comments:

Kelly Polark said...

I actually look to songs to inspire my poetry sometimes.
A favorite band of mine, Buckcherry, wrote a few songs after reading the book A Child Called It.
And lastly, when I was in jr. high, I wrote a song about the Outsiders (after reading it) and sang it throughout the house annoying my sister :).

MG Higgins said...

No one is jumping out at me as an author I'd write music to. But it's an interesting idea and a cool link. Who knew? (Love your new picture, BTW! It is new, right? Or am I terribly unobservant?)

Rena Jones said...

I used to listen to Kate Bush all the time. That looks like a great website. I'll have to check it out some more.

Christina Farley said...

Kelly- That is so funny about your song! But I bet you do write great music.

MG Higgins- You have a good eye! Yes, I had my husband take a picture of me for my revised website- it should be up soon!

Rena- Isn't that fun?

Nandini said...

What a cool website! Just discovered that Message of Love by the Pretenders has a line from Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere's Fan. Who knew?

Wonder if there's a list of music that inspired literature?

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

love the new pic :)

Kimbra Kasch said...

Yeah there should at least be something for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!!!