Have you ever thought of where the popular songs come from? Certainly, every music masterpiece has a piece of the inspiration behind it. Oftentimes, great lyrics stem from the classical literature. Below are the most prominent rocks songs that were created on its basis.
The Beatles - I Am The Walrus
The name of the senseless composition written by John Lennon in 1967 refers to Lewis Carroll's poem "Walrus and Carpenter" in the book "Through the Mirror" published in 1871. Moreover, the same song includes scraps of Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear".
Muse - The Small Print
According to Muse, the track from the album "Absolution" of 2003 is a retelling of Goethe's "Faust" from the perspective of Satan who performs a diabolical deal with the student: "Be my slave to the grave, I am a priest to whom God never Did not pay."
Metallica - One
The famous anti-war novel by Dalton Trumbo "Johnny took a gun", written in 1939 is about a young soldier in the First World War, who, being injured, loses his arms, legs, eyes, tongue, face. Nevertheless, his mind is still on the alert, leaving him trapped in a useless body, which makes us to think about his fate. This heartbreaking book turned into the same film in 1971, when the Vietnam War made this story topical again. Metallica used the novel as an inspiration for their track "One", and also included fragments from the film in Metallica music video.
The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes
Robert Smith occasionally paid tribute to literature: Cure debut single "Killing An Arab" is a retelling of Albert Camus' novel "The Stranger", while "The Drowning Man" is based on the trilogy "Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peak. The book “Charlotte Sometimes”, written in 1969 by Penelope Farmer, tells the story of a girl who, after the first night at the boarding school, wakes up and realizes that she made a time journey 40 years back, and everyone consider her as another girl. In 1981 Cure recorded the single in a form of the a.m. story retelling accompanied by a horrible video.
The Libertines - Narcissist
"Narcissist" is the sixth track from the second album of the band. The composition includes references to Dorian Gray, a cult character of Oscar Wilde.
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
The track from the album "Led Zeppelin II" (1969) refers to Tolkien's book “The Lord of the Rings”: "In the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl, but Gollum, the evil one crept up, and slipped away with her".
Pixies - Gouge Away
Black Francis likes to refer to Bible. For example, her song "Gouge Away" tellsus the story of Samson and Delilah: "Chained to the pillars, a three-day party, and here: I shake the walls, they fall and kill us all." This is a story about Dalilah who cut Samsons hair and took his strength, after what Samson was captured and blinded by the Philistines.
Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow
Before Gravity's Rainbow became the new rave anthem, it was a novel of the American writer Thomas Pynchon "The Rainbow of Earthly Gravitation." It is considered as one of the greatest American novels of all times, where the author narrates about the unification of science and speculative metaphysics with a high and low culture, which seems to be suitable for new rave culture.
The Greates Rocks Songs Created on Classical Literature
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