Name 100 books mentioned in songs (by name)...

So no "that book by Nabokov"...I can't think of one right now, weirdly

Destroyer - your blues (The Fall.or was it the band?)

The Fall - Bend Sinister (album included?)

"The Killer Inside Me", Dead Milkmen - Sri Lanka Sex Hotel

The Catcher in the Rye - Belle & Sebastian - "Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie" (gotta be some more from them)

hold steady - hornets! hornets! (Lolita, not directly)

Story of the Eye in "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" (ecch)

zeno! are either of those book titles? tsk tsk

Tom Sawyer - Rush

oh yeah, band names, please ("Past is a Grotesque Animal", what's that?)

yes:

the fall - camus
bend sinister - nabokov

xp

Of Montreal

led zep - moby dick

thanks--i meant what is hold steady and what is hornets hornets...sometimes, alice, you make me wanna...!

also destroyer - your blues - the plague by camues

hornets got Humbert Humbert in the lyrics, so it's Lolita, not directly

we're up to 9 if i can count all these fragmentary, poorly phrased responses. 10?

but thanks for the responses, really!

felt - sunlight bathed the golden glow - a season in hell by arthur rimbaud

So like, does the song have to actually mention the book (as a book)? Like, the one I picked the lyric is

Call the Sheriff a cocksucker/See if he's read "The Killer Inside Me".

Because you could also go down the route of songs that reference book titles that don't actually talk about reading (such as Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which loosely follows the concept of the Hemingway novel of the same name.

does 'wuthering heights' count?

also, cannibal corpse - 'fucked with a knife' ("sense and sensibility")

If songs named for books (or movies based on them) count:

Sonic Youth - Mildred Pierce

15. 1984 - David Bowie
16. Animal Farm - The Kinks

I think that the spirit of the thread is to identify songs where the lyric specifically mentions the name of a book, as in the thing that is read/has been written. I probably wouldn't count the Rush song, for instance, since they are singing about the character and not the thing with words and pages and stuff. (Same with the multitudes of Lolita songs.) But hey, that's just me.

Sorry, I myself did not phrase my thread title precisely enough. I was looking for book titles that are mentioned by name--not references to books, but the exact title--in the song, but i think if the book title is the song title, that's good too! thanks and sorry again

Yes! So Tom Sawyer counts, beeeatch! Suck on that fool!!!!!!!

the book title is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer sorry u lose

also, cannibal corpse - 'fucked with a knife' ("sense and sensibility")

― charlie h, Friday, October 1, 2010

I'm sure Jane Austen would've been really flattered to be namechecked in the song "fucked with a knife"!

she would have been flattered if it were true.

but, does 'wuthering heights' count?:

the book title is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer sorry u lose
Oh man. That blows.

Now, what about instances where the lyric contains the complete book title, but isn't necessarily referring to the book? Some examples would be:

Breathe - Pink Floyd (Run Rabbit Run dig that hole...)
Gates Of Eden - Bob Dylan (Of war and peace the truth just twists...)

The Mountain Goats' song "Cubs in 5" wishes grand things for The Canterbury Tales.

is mentioning Momus here cheating

Hedda Gabler - John Cale

It's a play that's been published as a book

I suppose it's cheating if a book was named after a song...

The Sirens of Titan - Al Stewart

3 Minute Rule - Beastie Boys

Sorry; the book is "On the Road."

itt: indie preciousness

re story of the eye

# of Montreal's song "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" references both author Georges Bataille and the book.
# The song "Bluestocking" by Momus also references the author and the book.
# Eyehategod references this book in a song on their 1993 album, Take as Needed for Pain.

thank god for eyehategod

she would have been flattered if it were true.
but, does 'wuthering heights' count?:

― charlie h, Friday, October 1, 2010 1:22 AM

I'm as thick as a brick...you made that up? very funny--sick, but funny

"Rocky Racoon" mentions Gideon's Bible

(I don't care if mentioning the Bible here is cheating)

Was just going to post this:

Does the Bible count? 'Cos, like, a million songs to thread (Rocky Racoon, Locomotive Breath, etc.)

Elvis Costello - Pony Street (Das Kapital)

Stranger in a Strange Land gets a namecheck in We Didn't Start the Fire, but what doesn't.

_The Sound of Waves_ by Yukio Mishima on 'This Lamb Sells Condos' by Final Fantasy

"Forbidden Colors" by Mishima as well in the David Sylvian/Ryuichi Sakamoto song of the same name.

Soul on Ice (A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation")

the Roots album titles to thread

For some reason all I can think of is newspapers . . . "News Of The World" in The Pretenders' "Back On The Chain Gang," and the Times and Daily News in Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." Book titles are escaping me.

40. Van Morrison - Dharma Bums - "On Hyndford Street" cool blog post here http://www.litkicks.com/BeatsInRock