The Book Song Songbook: A Literary Playlist

Hey, Meh writer @JasonToon here. Today we’re selling some Pioneer Dolby Atmos Bookshelf Speakers. They’re decent bookshelf speakers in their own right, but they also add a vertical channel when used with an Atmos receiver for that 3D Atmos sound that I’ve explained again and again and I can’t do it anymore no please don’t make me you can’t make me

Ahem. If you want to know more about these, check the last sale and discussion or read their 4.7-star Amazon reviews. For this edition of our weekend playlist (also in a YouTube playlist for your autoplay autopleasure), I’ll be looking elsewhere on the bookshelf for songs about books you can listen to on your bookshelf speakers.

Led Zeppelin - “Ramble On” (1969)
This being Meh, I’m gonna guess you probably have some Tolkien on your shelves. It’ll go nicely with Robert Plant’s tale of his fair maiden being stolen from him in Mordor by Gollum, but this song sounds pretty non-canonical to me.

The Alarm - “The Stand” (1983)
Chances are you’ve bumped into Stephen King at some point, too. So did Mike Peters, a Welshman who mentions several characters and images from King’s The Stand in this song of the same name.

Simon & Garfunkel - “Richard Cory” (1966)
Maybe this is all too lowbrow for you. You’re more the poetic type, like Paul Simon. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s 1899 poem is about a rich, esteemed townsperson who shoots himself in the head. Simon flips the perspective, singing as one of the laborers in Cory’s factory.

Green Day - “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?” (1992)
Some books just seem to hit that angsty, youthful sweet spot that inspires song after song. Here’s one of many, many, MANY songs that invoke The Catcher in the Rye, although Green Day doesn’t mention the confused youth by name in the lyrics, only in the title.

The Noisettes - “Atticus” (2009)
Catcher’s song-inspiring power is matched only by To Kill a Mockingbird. I plucked this 2009 salute to lawyer Finch mainly because I had never heard it before.

Woody Guthrie - “The Ballad of Tom Joad” (1940)
When Woody Guthrie first set John Steinbeck’s hard-luck Okies to music, The Grapes of Wrath was a current bestseller and the events it describes were still going on. You could almost call this journalism.

The Police - “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” (1980)
Sting makes sure we all know he reads books with a Nabokov shout-out, by name. As obvious and pretentious as it is to write a song inspired by Lolita, it’s less icky than the song being inspired by Sting’s personal experiences as a schoolteacher.

Modest Mouse - “Bukowski” (2004)
If you’re into more recent American lit, here’s Modest Mouse thumbing through Charles Bukowski, wondering “why would anyone want to be such an asshole?”

Tuscadero - “Nancy Drew” (1994)
Ah, but the first paper cuts are the deepest. Tuscadero are outraged that their parents have thrown out all their beloved Nancy Drew books. Stick around for the bridge, where several Drew novels get namechecked.

David Bowie - “1984” (1974)
David Bowie was in a bleak place around the time of Diamond Dogs. No wonder he was inspired to write a song by the soul-crushing dystopia to top all soul-crushing dystopias.

Obviously, this list is heavily skewed toward my own tastes, but I’d love to be turned on to some other lit jamz in the forum - even though there’s no room on my bookshelves for these Pioneer Dolby Atmos Bookshelf Speakers.

Wander the stacks of past weekend playlists:

• The World Inside the Paradise Garage
• Rock of Myth: Songs of Ancient Legends
• Library Music: Overdue for Recognition
• Beyond the Legend: Bob Marley Deep Cuts
• Weekend playlist archive