Issue #6 of High Carb Low Life is currently in the works. Here's a little sneak preview. But remember: It's not too late to still submit!
Words For Yr Ears! I've got a friend who exclusively reads books about music. Doesn't give a shit about anything else. Doesn't care, doesn't bother. And while I love him, I think he's missing out. Cause I'm not sure if he knows how many of his favorite songs are actually about books. Maybe there’s more to the song than he realizes. Because here's the thing, it’s usually obvious when a movie is made from a book. But a song? I think even the staunchest of the anti-book contingency would be surprised by the influence literature has on their favorite music. Cause you know, sometimes even punks can be inspired. Metalheads, Goths, Indie Rockers too. And when scene policing and trying to rewrite their favorite songs for their band becomes too exhausting they have to indulge themselves in some sort of other inspiration. Movies work, but usually lack. And who writes a song about a movie they just watched? (Glen Danzig, you don't count.)
But books... Literature has been inspiring art for centuries. And yes, shitty musicians are no exception. In fact, I think you'd be surprised to find out how many amazing songs are actually about books and not the feelings of some oh-so-misunderstood person with a stupid haircut and a microphone. So what I've done here is make a list of some of my favorite songs about books. Some may be familiar, some obvious, some neither.
So for those of you unfortunates who suffer from either bibliophobia or pulpuslaceratapohobia, this is for you. Just assuage those fears and put the needle to the record...
Anthrax - Among The Living
Book: The Stand, Stephen KingStephen King has never gotten his due credit. Yeah, he spits out crap left and right. Yeah, he's had more shitty movies made from his stories than pretty much any other author, ever. But he's a cult writer who influences cult artists. I mean, this song is a fucking mosh pit anthem! How can you resist screaming along with: "Disease, disease, spreading the disease!" You can't! The Paris Review respected Stephen King enough to do an amazing Art Of Fiction (no. 189) interview with him, The Ramones loved him enough to write "Pet Semetary" about his book, and Stanley Kubrick made a great movie influenced by one of his great books. Hail Stephen King, great muse to the weird!
Joy Division - Colony
Book: In the Penal Colony, Franz KafkaIt seems as though Ian Curtis never really cared about masking his literary influences. This is the most cryptic one I know of. He flat out took the names of J.G. Ballard’s "Atrocity Exhibition" and Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls." Then again, this guy hung himself in a laundry room, so you can't really say he was one for hiding things. Now how influential was this book on Ian Curtis? Well, it's about a man who hopes to experience a sort of true justice and epiphany by nobly killing himself, but ends up simply dying. So I think the answer is "very."
Bad Brains - Attitude
Book: Think And Grow Rich, Napoleon HillIt's kinda weird that the idea of positivity in punk rock and (especially) hardcore came from a self-help book. One of the most popular books printed in the 20th century that has been continually in print since 1937. It's one of those self-help books based on imitating the successful. And who doesn't want to be that? But the advice is, funnily enough, culled from interviews with some of the greatest, and most fucked up, assholes of the 20th century. Apparently Josef Stalin, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller Sr., and Teddy Roosevelt all have that P.M.A.
The Misfits - Hollywood Babylon
Book: Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth AngerBeing that The Misfits sang about every shitty horror movie ever made the question of whether this song is about the book, or the movie about the book, could be raised. The book itself is filled with lurid photographs and stories of the decadence of pre-Hays Code Hollywood all through the Sharon Tate murders. You know, the good old days where rape and murder were simply occupational hazards. While the movie was a shitty docu-pic recreating some of the more sensational stories and a box office bomb, the book was a cultural bombshell. It was banned 10 days after its initial publication in 1965, and remained out of print for the next decade. It’s filled with the kind of material that probably inspired Danzig for years. Did you know that Clara Bow slept with the entire USC football team? Or that Rudy Valentino's gay lover Ramon Navarro died with an Art Deco dildo in his throat? Also included were the photographs of Jayne Mansfield’s decapitating car accident. So I think it's pretty safe to say that good old Glen read at least one book in his life.
Cocksparrer - Droogs Don’t Run
Book: Clockwork Orange, Anthony BurgessWhile these days it’s almost a cliché reference, the influence of Clockwork Orange on British punk rock cannot be over stated. Prior to the skinhead and punk movements of the late 70's many bands adopted Droog fashion/culture of the film to show themselves as being decidedly anti-social. Keep in mind that the film version of this book was banned in England from 1972 (the year after it came out) until 2001. Cocksparrer, along with Clockwork Orange, helped a great deal in setting the aesthetic and social template for the entire British Oi movement. Unfortunately, some argue that this song ruins an otherwise amazing album. But it's really just the shitty and completely unfuckingnecessary Adam Ant/New Romantic tribal drum overdubs. Trust me.
Iron Maiden - Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Book (err...Poem): Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe most obvious of all musical influences as the lyrics simply are the poem. But you have to give Iron Maiden credit for making the accompanying music as epic (if not even more so) than the poem itself. Plus the part where Bruce Dickenson shouts "Water, water everywhere...and not a drop to drink!" still fills me with silly glee.
The Minutemen - June 16th
Book: Ulysses, James JoyceMike Watt likes to talk. I mean, really. He's infamous for it. And if you ever listen to him, you can hear him forming ideas and theories and storylines as he's going along. Straight stream-of-consciousness. And we can all pretty much blame Joyce for that style. At least artistically (I'm sure Watt was doing that before he ever opened a book). And don't forget that Joyce had lofty expectations of his work. Especially Ulysses. It was literature and anti-literature. It was a way to destroy through creating. It was hated, and loved. Regaled and dismissed. Just like The Minutemen. So guess what, Mike Watt is a punk Joyce. So is George Hurley. So was D. Boon. You've got to carefully following what they're saying to get at what they really mean. They challenge you to. For a hyper-political band, The Minutemen never resorted to generalized sloganeering. Thanks to them we got a whole new vocabulary to say fuck you. And while this song has the most obvious of the Joycean influence (being that June 16th is the day when the entirety of Ulysses takes place), it’s not the only song inspired by Watt's reading Ulysses. The album Double Nickels On The Dime also has "One Reporter's Opinion," "Retreat," "The Glory of Man, and "My Heart and the Real World." All those songs have rather strong Joycean elements. Just ask Mike Watt. I’m sure he'd be more than happy to talk to you all about it. So why pick this song, one with no words, as the best example? I just think it sums up the power of literature in that a book so wordy could help inspire an instrumental song.
Nirvana - Scentless Apprentice
Book: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick SusskindThis book is fucked up. You know the back cover photo on In Utero? The one with all the fetuses and weird shit and pseudo-gore? Well, this is the literary equivalent. The main character is an orphan born without his own scent, but with hyper-smelling. After murdering a girl to try to get more of her intoxicating scent but failing to because her smell dies when she does, main character Grenouille smells/meets a girl and decides that he’s going to kill her to make her scent in a perfume. But before he does that he murders 24 virgins to get a good base for the scent. Eventually he gets caught for the 25 killings and is sentenced to death. But before the execution the scent of this murder perfume gets out and affects the entire town. The effect? Everyone starts fucking. So of course he's pardoned. It turns out he did make the best perfume ever. But now seeing that he's only liked because of this perfume he made, he decides to kill himself anyway. He does it by sneaking up on a wretched hive of scum of villainy and covering himself with the perfume. The smell overpowers the group of street urchins and they proceed to literally tear him apart. And then eat him. Fucked up shit. So Kurt Cobain wrote a song about it. One that makes as much sense as the book that inspired it. Interestingly enough this is also the only song on In Utero that credits Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic as songwriters. So I guess everyone wanted to have something to do with this beautiful story.
Leonard Cohen - Alexandra Leaving
Book: The God Forsakes Antony, C. P. CavafyEven the much revered, not-quite-living-not-quite-dead, poet/musician Leonard Cohen can’t help but be moved by other people’s words. In 2001 he was still absorbing other's works and being inspired to his own. He gives this poem a different of treatment than he did when he turned Federico Garcia Lorca's "Little Viennese Waltz" into his "Take This Waltz" in 1988. As opposed to basically reworking and readjusting someone else's poem, he reinterprets it. Instead of being about the desperation in losing one’s home and the abandonment of god, it’s about the same feeling in the loss of a lover. The feeling of total and abject heartbreak. You can really feel it in both the poem and the song. And if Leonard Cohen loves writing about anything more than anything else, it’s writing about doomed, deserted, and dead love.
And now a special section where I get to talk about the 2 things I love most: Books and The Cure.
DARK READING WITH ROBERT! 
Pretty much everyone who likes The Cure knows that "Killing An Arab" is about Albert Camus' "The Stranger." You pretty much have to so as that you can explain to your parents, co-workers, significant others that you’re not actually racist. But a lot of people don't realize the influence books have had on Mad Bob's career. When you’ve been as prolific a musician as Robert Smith for as long as he has, you're going to have start dipping into other's inkwells. There's only so much gossamer doom and jaundiced despair one can come up with personally. So for those of you wondering to yourselves about the contents
Robert Smith's Athenaeum of Tomes Most Gloomed, a small glimpse...
Song: How Beautiful You Are Book (err...poem): Les Yeux des Pauvres, Charles Baudelaire
Of course The Cure would be influenced by Baudelaire. I mean, fucking come on. I bet you all wouldn’t be surprised if every song from Seventeen Seconds through Pornography was actually written by Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, or any other 19th century French poet.
Song: The Drowning Man
Book: Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
For someone who actually now lives in castles, it’s not surprising that Robert Smith would be influenced by a book about one. Gormenghast is creatively titled second book of a three book cycle following the inhabitants of Castle Gormenghast. Being with spooooky gothic themes, an emphasis on ritual and sameness, and rife with bleakness, it’s easy to see how a 1981 Robert Smith was inspired by it. The series is also regarded as an influence on the Mannerpunk literary subgenre (yes, even in the lit world people like to codify new genres by adding the ever dreadful punk hyphen to it).
Song: Adonais
Book (err...Poem): Adonais, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Being that Shelley wrote this as a pastoral elegy to the recently dead Keats, you know it’s going to be inherently depressing. There’s the inevitability of death, the passage of mourning, the why-god-why. But in a rather black twist, the poem goes on to say that Adonais being dead is better off than the living. After all, he's dead, and we're dying. Which is really worse?
Song: Bananafishbones
Book (err...Short Story): A Perfect Day For Bananafish, J.D. Salinger
Lets see. An ambiguous short story about a man who while spending a lovely day at the beach becomes paranoid and eventually wishes death on his self. Sounds like a Cure song to me.
And then there’s the "Charlotte Sometimes" musical trilogy...It seems that old Bob was so taken by Penelope Farmer's 1969 spooky children's novel that he saw fit to write 3 songs about it, two of which were released as a single and b-side in 1981 (
"Charlotte Sometimes," and
"Splintered In Her Head"). 3 years later, the book was revisited on the album "The Top" with the song
"The Empty World."
The book follows in the boarding school theme of many English children’s books, but with a more haunting twist. The morning after Charlotte spends the night in her new boarding room she wakes up in 1918, 45 years earlier. She's still her, in her mind, but everyone around her thinks she's a girl named Clare. In fact, she actually is Clare. It seems that the two girls swap places every night. The interesting thing is that although they inhabit the same body, they have two separate minds. Because of that, they can't actually communicate with each other, so they write hidden notes to help each other live the others life. It's really a perfect story for older children (or the perpetually adolescent of all ages) in that the characters learn how to become who they really are by realizing that they don’t know who they are at all. With a themes like that, and scenes full of séances, deadly influenza, and dreaming it really does lend itself to endless influence on those with an interest in the dark and supernatural. You know, like Robert Smith.
Super-extra added bonus! 5 SONGS THAT ARENT ABOUT BOOKS, JUST REFERENCE AUTHORS: Screeching Weasel - Kamala's Too Nice (Erich Fromme)
Belle And Sebastian - This Is Just A Modern Rock Song (Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Mark Twain)
Dillinger 4 - Doublewhiskeycokenoice (Nelson Algren)
The Smiths - Cemetary Gates (John Keats, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde)
Mr. T Experience - Naomi (Naomi Wolf)
- Ray Suburbia
