literary influences on pop - classic or dud?

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
is -for instance - the c19th french symbolist poetry influence in Television important or relevant to an appreciation of their music? Or are literary influences generally a pretentious and boring cul de sac?

other examples: Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas, Galaxie 500 and Surrealism, Prog Rock and Lord of the Rings, Patti Smith and Bukowski etc etc etc

Sorry my examples are so CLASSIC ROCK, by the way, maybe you can think of better ones.

Peter, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

exit, pursued by a beer

Peter, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Er - Wuthering Heights? Dire Straits Romeo And Juliet? Tom Jones?

Pete Baran, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

richard ashcroft nicked blake for the opening line to "history" which is a masterstroke. but then, as i've just realized, he lifts joyce's "was it a dream? was i in it?" for "on your own," which isn't as good because i wrongly attributed the fine line to him.

and i'm sure there are tons of others.

fred solinger, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fred: offhand, I don't recognize that last example. Is it from the Wake? I'd be surprised to learn that Ashcroft had read it.

the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Peter asks a complicated, open-ended sort of question. One version of the question, for instance, is: when literature gets referred to, do you have to get all the references? One is inclined to answer No, but that may be a kneejerk reaction. Another aspect is simply: can literary references enrich a song? I am inclined to answer Yes - not, of course, because 'literature' is 'better' than 'pop music', just because it can sometimes be interesting to experience music as complex, allusive, built of references to many things.

I am trying to say: add literature and stir. It may not come off, but then again it may add a bit of flavour that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't believe it's important to appreciating anyone's music at all - who cares if a "fine line" (which the Verve line in question really isn't but anyhow) is attributed to the wrong person? I don't believe knowing where something comes from or what a reference means necessarily hinders or helps you enjoy a song more - if a song is crap, it's crap, and no amount of knowing that a line references Rimbaud is going to help the song become uncrap.

I think it's great though, just as much as any type of influence is great. If they all come together in a good way, then it's fantastic. The problem is that a lot of artists who are heavy on the literary allusions ARE pretentious gits who go on and on about how important their literary influences are. If they'd shut up they'd be much more bearable.

Oh, and totally destroy ALL references to hobbits in music.

Ally, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jim Morrison led me to Rimbaud, Kerouac et al; Marc Almond showed me the way to Maldoror and Huysman - all interesting and influential, regardless of merit...so yeah - v. important. But I'm a writer - go figure.

Geoff, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Marilyn Manson video based on a Shirley Jackson story was alright, as was most of his Nietzsche shtick cuz it was as silly as Nietzsche himself. John Zorn doing a soundtrack to Genet works is just kind of annoying. Maldoror was a funny guy, so I approve of all those World Serpent bands referencing him. Mostly though, rockers just reference wanky beats, so DUD. When I put out an album, I'm gonna reference Britney's book.

Otis Wheeler, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm gonna ask this again (only BIGGER), so you'se crew can ignore it again (only RUDER):

Has any band EVER been any good that named itself for (a) someone else's novel/poem (b) someone else's LP/song (c) someone else's movie/TV show (d) non-fiction/documentaries/other even less likely inspirations?

Obviously this is decreasing order of dudness as I'm reading it/guessing it.

[Obviously naming your LP for someone else's LP can be stupid ("Giant Steps") or completely brilliant (can't think of an example; must be several: I liked that War called their LP U2, but the LP itself was very boring).]

mark s, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

pinefox:

last chapter of ulysses. i was surprised he got that far, but maybe he didn't, maybe he and joyce are just on the same wavelength.

fred solinger, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Maybe he read it backwards? That's the only way I can see him getting that far.

Nicole, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

From memory (but I might be wrong) something •like• "was it a dream/was I in it" comes at the end of Alice in Wonderland. Which obviously •Joyce• read backwards, taking his leads from Thru the looking Glass.

mark s, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

graeme downes of the verlaines once populated almost all of his songs with all sorts of literary and historical references from verlaine and rimbaud to dostoevsky to albrecht durer. but then he came under attack for being an elitist and he pretty much halted it, too sad that.

'you shouldn't talk to me, find better company, there's better people to know, you'll only end up like rimbaud, get shot by verlaine'

keith, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

John Cale on Paris 1919 -- classic. Velvet Underground, named after a dirty novel -- classic. Lou Reed singing about Romeo & Juliet et al -- classic. The Jazz Butcher's single "The Crying of Lot 49" -- Classic. The Mekons naming an album after a Celine novel -- Classic.

Sterling Clover, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1. Mark S: I suppose Radiohead are named from the Talking Heads 45. Are Radiohead any good? I would say, yes, sometimes quite good; I'm sure that many others would say, no, absolute rubbish.

2. I really do have to say those two immortal words 'Lloyd' and 'Cole' here.

the pinefox, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Holed in one! The Velvet Underground!! Never heard of 'em!!! Oops.

But the others Sterling mentions are all naming their records/songs after books or whatever: which is a somewhat different matter. Bands/ artistes have to come up with dozens if not hundreds of track-titles: it's the one-off We-Present-Ourselves-Now moment of the bandname where it seems to me mostly just lamentable to reach for whatever you hope will be seen to be yr favoured reading/viewing. (What a ugly sentence...)

Starsailor being the pluperfectly naff example.

On the other hand, The Fall. (Perhaps I shd have researched this before I jumped in. Though I'd still maintain this is a better name if not a Camus ref.)

mark s, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

...and speaking of camus: "killing an arab" anyone? ned? ;)

fred solinger, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What, the Cure?

Lit references - Similar to pastiche/cliches, useful but frequently abused. but so often it's just another unqualified reference - gain kudos through association with something they know about but don't understand. I don't mind these reference so long as there's a reason, or obviously no reason. It reminds me of Jacques le Con's referencing of the eighties - "cause it's cool" "yeah, but why's it cool" "cause it's cool"

I'm actually afraid of mentioning this, but I always thought Bob Dylan pulled it off

K-reg, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hm? That's just the most obvious one.

Ned Raggett, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ally! Taking away all references to hobbits would leave no room for Turbonegro's "Hobbit Motherfuckers".

Otis Wheeler, Saturday, 5 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Most boring band named after a Dildo in Burrough's Maked Lunch - Steely Dan

Geoff, Sunday, 6 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that's how a three year-old would refer to having made lunch, i think

ethan, Sunday, 6 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oops - u know I neant naked

Geoff, Monday, 7 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Otis: If a song is insulting the hobbits, and it sounds like "Hobbit Motherfuckers" would count, then it's alright. Songs that reference the hobbit in a good way, ie Led Zepplin, need to be destroyed.

Ally, Monday, 7 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Keeping my finger crossed in the hope that somebody will one day record a song named: "Hobbit Motherfuckers". Mmm, something for the Geto Boys reunion album?

Ah yes on-topic: Kate Bush - The Sensual World, song inspired apparently by last chapter of Ulysses. Always thought it was mysterious and sorta sexy.

Dylan obvious example of getting it *wrong*

Omar, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Omar, believe it or not, this is the kind of comment I was interested in reading.. how does Dylan get it wrong in your opinion?

Slavish, humourless homage to the beats? etc etc?

Peter, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the greatest literary reference of all time: ice cube's 'gangsta fairytale' from amerikkka's most wanted.

'hickory dickory dock, it was twelve o'clock / cinderella ain't home must be givin up the cock / i don't doubt it, she is kind of freaky of course / had a fight with snow white, she was fuckin her dwarves / saw a fight over colors too /red riding hood and little boy blue'

and then it samples the flintstones, bugs bunny, and andrew dice clay at the end. that's so cool.

ethan, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well Peter I put in a sneaky comment, because one can get burned in doubting Dylan's genius.

But,

"Slavish, humourless homage to the beats?"

certainly. Also endless comparisons with Rimbaud that I just don't get. But I have this personal mythology where Dylan figures as some evil king who almost destroys popmusic by letting the Word overshadow intensity, regardless of crap voice and music. Something which Patti Smith understood much better. What I find interesting in Smith is not so much here poetic indebtness to Baudelaire but just that intensity. good example: that moment where words spill over in the introduction to 'Rock 'n Roll Nigger' and the guitar starts to rise.

Omar, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one can get burned in doubting Dylan's genius

not on ILM, I'm sure! :-)

I'm a sporadic Dylan fan, but I agree, the Rimbaud references must keep getting made by people who have never read Rimbaud. Dylan is at heart a great big soppy sentimentalist, the last thing Rimbaud was.

Ditto for most Rimbaud-Rock "connections". The only ones I can see working are Patti Smith, and perhaps Television, although you'll forgive me if I claim more of a debt to Mallarme, despite the singer's alias. Or did Dylan write a load of songs about ruthlessly efficient African slave trading?

Peter, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

not on ILM, I'm sure! :-) -----

Oh, Pete be careful out here, many strange things happen in the treacherous alleyways of ILM. Springsteen getting an almost unanimous Classic vote, that sort of thing ;)

Televison again a case where I don't see the connection. One wonders why one always speaks of "19th century French symbolist poetry" as an influence on Television, without explaining what influence exactly. Someone care to give it a try though? Maybe I'll put on 'Marquee Moon' again.

Omar, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dylan. Dylan? Did someone call his name in vain. Yeah, he does miss sometimes, (Desolation Row) but surely sheer weight of his output, errors and all, excuses this. He's not a holy cow, so much as a pantheon of broken idols, individually faulted personas, some literary, others inarticulate. He's the first person to refute the genius tag, but he continues working; already onto new things before the write-ups. It's his fans that dwell on the details, (I have a theory that they become so partisan because initially they spend so long kidding themselves they like it that when the penny drops they're 'converted'). I'm not a Dylan-ite, just contemporary wordsmiths fail to move and educate me in the way he did, over so many albums.

The dominance of the 'word', well it's a small territory that he inherited from folk/blues, but he moved with the times and continued to rule it absolutely. I'm sure he didn't understand music as well as others. He bucked the trends and made his own way through the changes. The voice, or his expressive playing is central to all the music, and that's consistent throughout, but the words won't date as bad as the music. The lit references are just more points of reference to pin him down, mis-leading or not, it's like saying you don't like duff notes.

K-reg, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

OK, Television and Symbolism: these are just ideas and some more erudite member of the community may come and blow me out of the water (please do!), but for my money:

Tom Verlaine's lyrics often make meaning fold over on itself ("watching the corners turn corners") in exactly the same way Mallarme experimented with hyperbolic tautologies ("the musician of hollow nothingness") which kind of negated any meaning but kept a structure of linguistic elegance afloat in the meaninglessness anyway. This was a very controlled and artificial experiment, almost a linguistic structural equation, and as far as these things have any meaning in comparison, it seems to me that Television do the same thing with their music...

because they had a controlled frenzy in juxtaposing notes, from a purely muso point of view Verlaine was absolutely not a conventional guitarist - he throws himself off into strange, illogical keys, then resolves the difference, and finds a way back into the song in an amazingly elegant and unpredictable way. It all seems like a highly artificial, poised musical equation, (topped off by a smattering of defiant Rimbaud-esque streetwise harangues).

As someone said elsewhere, Bangs et al were invoking the macho element of Rimbaud when they talked about duelling switchblade guitars... I prefer the model of the studious, faultlessly elegant Mallarme.. no lice in his hair!

Peter, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and to bring Dylan back in, I think a lot of his stuff is too grounded in the protest tradition of goodies and baddies, moments of moral certitude, epiphany, etc etc. rather than Televsion's -and some of the Symbolist authors' - studied amorality / ambiguity...

Peter, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It can be a dud, but the crossover seems as if it's a necessary classic. Music cannot exist in a vacuum.

Just a couple unrelated as evidence to classic or dud status... Nick Cave and others draw upon the vein of Southern Gothic, with Faulkner and O'Connor. And what about those great monolithic presences on hip-hop, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu? The music be quite lost without their guiding lights.

badger, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This morning, sunny day, riding my bike to work with 'Marquee Moon' on my headphones I realized that you're absolutely on to something here, Peter (esp. Venus de Milo). So cheers. :)

Omar, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...
Hey, it's too bad Peter doesn't post anymore cos his answer up there is really nice.

I was listening to 'What's Wrong With This Picture' on the new Lloyd Cole/Negatives album yesterday and was struck by the oddness of Five Leaves Left as a musical reference point for someone who is supposed to be an ironic "European SOB". But then I realized that the primary reference must be to paper for rolling cigarettes, which fits, esp. if the tobacco is Gauloise or something, and that the Nick Drake album is only a secondary reference, for what's hidden beneath that cool exterior. (Or maybe his fans would think of the Nick Drake album first?) Layered references are really cool. (Sorry the reference isn't strictly literary.)

youn, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey, Omar, guess who told his listener to read Kafka's "The Penal Settlement" before listening to one of his songs?

hee

Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Our advice is "instead"

The Zappa Police, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...
they harnessed the energy you associate with punk, even as they crossed it with art-rock and the poetic urges of frontman Tom Verlaine (nee Miller, renamed after the French poet-- but not in a fey way)

From the pitchfork review of Marquee Moon. I love that "not in a fey way": He named himself after Verlaine, but not y'know, in a gay way or anything.

pulpo, Thursday, 11 December 2003 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...
phlar

phlar, Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

can anyone defend brautigan allusions?

charltonlido (gareth), Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

not me!

s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

Machines of Loving Grace is quite a good name for a band, I think.

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Scritti Politti - influenced by Gramsci, Wittgenstein, Derrida = classic.
The Wake - influenced by James Joyce = classic.
Kitchens of Distinction - many lyrics influenced by Rimbaud and Kerouac = classic. And Stephen Hero (Patrick Fitzgerald's newer group) has a name referencing Joyce.
The Comsat Angels - named for a J.G. Ballard short = classic.
Joy Division - influenced by The House of Dolls, Ballard, Burroughs = most would say classic, although I'm personally tired of them.

Has any band EVER been any good that named itself for (a) someone else's novel/poem (b) someone else's LP/song (c) someone else's movie/TV show (d) non-fiction/documentaries/other even less likely inspirations?
Regarding A, I already mentioned The Wake (name derived from Finnegan's Wake). Regarding B, Rip Rig and Panic named for a Rahsaan Roland Kirk LP. C, Breathless, Xiu Xiu (although many people that have heard them don't like them). D, Scritti Politti = a bastardisation of the title of a Gramsci text.

Ian Riese-Moraine has a grenade, that pineapple's not just a toy! (Eastern Mantr, Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:37 (twenty years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.