Songs about Avant-Garde writers?

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The new (upcoming, I guess) Pernice Brothers album has a song simply called "BS Johnson" which is, according to their website, an homage to the brilliant British avant-garde writer of the same name.

Any other songs about avant-garde/difficult/obscure writers? Myla Goldberg doesn't count.

― meritocracy (spencerman), Thursday, 21 September 2006 17:29 (twenty years ago)

Radio Sterne by Kraftwerk

― everything (everything), Thursday, 21 September 2006 17:47 (twenty years ago)

"James Joyce is fucking my sister" - "Potato Junkie" by Therapy?
Hilariously bad Nabokov reference in "Don't Stand So Close to Me"
Collected Works of Steely Dan

― Everything Is Ill-Educated (noodle vague), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:04 (twenty years ago)

Bauhaus - Antonin Artaud

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

Lou Reed wrote a few songs about Delmore Schwartz, including European Son.

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:25 (twenty years ago)

Leonard Cohen also has a few.. "To a Teacher" off of Dear Heather is about poet A.M. Klein. That album also has a song dedicated to Irving Layton.

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:31 (twenty years ago)

pablo picasso was never called an asshole

― autovac (autovac), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:41 (twenty years ago)

"I Zimbra" - lyrics by & about mr. Hugo Ball

― autovac (autovac), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:43 (twenty years ago)

okay can anyone tell me who did that awful indie rock song about ezra pound? k thx bye x

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:47 (twenty years ago)

wasn't "church on white" by malkmus off the first solo record about a writer...or was it an artist? i don't remember anymore...

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 21 September 2006 18:53 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't that awful indie rockt song about ezra pound by better than ezra?

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Thursday, 21 September 2006 19:25 (twenty years ago)

David Foster Wallace by Tsunami.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Thursday, 21 September 2006 19:27 (twenty years ago)

Church on White's about Rob Bingham I think? One of the founders of Open City magazine, he also has a book of short stories and a novel. And he is dead.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Thursday, 21 September 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

ted leo has a song called "king of time" based on the collection of the same name by russian futurist poet velimir khlebnikov. idlewild wrote a song about gertrude stein called "roseability."

depending on how loosely we're defining "avant-garde," idlewild also have a song called "these wooden ideas" about baudrillard. scritti politti have a song about derrida. the mr. t experience and the weakerthans both have songs that mention foucault. ted leo's "biomusicology" quotes t. s. eliot's quotation from wagner's tristan und isolde in the waste land. leonard cohen's "take this waltz" is based on garcia lorca's "little viennese waltz." there's sonic youth "hits of sunshine (for allen ginsberg)." there's an oblique robert creeley quote in a built to spill song, i think on the normal years, but i can't remember which song or which poem. "jean genie" is apparently about genet. the crabs have a hilarious song called "jean-paul sartre" -- "...with his one true love simone/all they are is all alone." and then there's the recent shamelessly self-promoting sonic youth song about reena spaulings.

television personalities have songs about artists, some from the historical avant-garde: dali and, arguably miró, as well as songs about contemporary artists: bridget riley, hockney, lichtenstein.

― Godfrzej Ljang (godfrzej), Thursday, 21 September 2006 22:54 (twenty years ago)

Stretching it, but the mention of Lorca in "Spanish bombs".

― struttin' with some barbecue (jimnaseum), Thursday, 21 September 2006 22:56 (twenty years ago)

The Rutles, Another Day

A glass of wine with Gertrude Stein I know I'll never share
But I don't mind, that's just the kind of cross each man must bare.

― Am I Re-elected Yet? (Dada), Friday, 22 September 2006 08:25 (twenty years ago)

Willy Loco Alexander "Kerouac"

― snowballing (snowballing), Friday, 22 September 2006 08:37 (twenty years ago)

Dexy's Midnight Runners, Dance Stance

(Never heard about)
Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan,
(Can't think about)
Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw.
Samuel Beckett, Eugene O'Neill, Edna O'Brien and Lawrence Sterne

― Am I Re-elected Yet? (Dada), Friday, 22 September 2006 08:39 (twenty years ago)

MC Paul Barman to thread

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Friday, 22 September 2006 11:45 (twenty years ago)

Kerouac/Beats-related: King Crimson's Beat.

― mark 0 (mark 0), Friday, 22 September 2006 12:19 (twenty years ago)

Isn't Scott Walker's "The Cockfighter" about García-Lorca?

― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 22 September 2006 12:23 (twenty years ago)

Boo Radleys - Charles Bukowski Is Dead
Blur - Country House (Is Balzac avant-garde?)

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 22 September 2006 12:24 (twenty years ago)

There must be a song about Brecht somewhere in the pop universe.

― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:13 (twenty years ago)

Why do people who read Dostoyevsky look like Dostoyevsky?

― doug watson (solid air), Friday, 22 September 2006 17:51 (twenty years ago)

Get a new tailor, read Norman Mailer.

― doug watson (solid air), Friday, 22 September 2006 17:52 (twenty years ago)

Though I wouldn't necessary consider either Dostoyevsky or Mailer to be avant-garde.

― doug watson (solid air), Friday, 22 September 2006 17:53 (twenty years ago)

well the Decembrists seem to have made a career (sic) of pretentious name drops of literary figures. Making REM look like jean jacketed rockers in the process. College rock is not dead i guess.

― Ben Dover (jonbenetsbody), Friday, 22 September 2006 19:00 (twenty years ago)

"song for lorca" by Apostle of Hustle. Also, if someone's going to include Bukowski, I guess you have to include the Modest Mouse song about him.

I'm sort of blanking now but there must be a few hundred French singers who've referred to avant-garde writers in their work. Gainsbourg must be one. I can only think of La Chanson de Prevert (which also mentions his collaboration with Joseph Kosma who set Prevert's poems to music)

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Friday, 22 September 2006 19:13 (twenty years ago)

meaulnes by will oldham, although calling alain-fournier avant-garde may be stretching it a little

― badg (badg), Saturday, 23 September 2006 09:18 (twenty years ago)

Why are people who mock the Decemberists so familiar with they work?

― Dedicated to Jaggers Who Do Drive-Bys (noodle vague), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:01 (twenty years ago)

cause they know what they're talking about?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:12 (twenty years ago)

ah, the Decemberists, a benchmark for mediocre, college pablum. once again, thanks, Portland!

― Igor Adkins (Grodd), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:20 (twenty years ago)

I feel like hating on them is more indie than meh-ing them.

― Dedicated to Jaggers Who Do Drive-Bys (noodle vague), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:24 (twenty years ago)

a friend gave me a couple of their CDs. meh is def the word.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:38 (twenty years ago)

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