Do you have that one friend who only reads a book every few years, but when they do, they don’t shut their damp, smelly mouth up about it for the next several years? Well, what if that friend was in a famous rock band? What if they owed their label a new record, and hated coming up with their own ideas? In that case you might be subjected to whole songs — hell, sometimes whole albums — about whatever classic they skimmed through but “totally got the gist of.” Here are 5 times a band did read a book, and then made it all our problem.
5. Led Zeppelin, “The Lord of the Rings”
When Robert Plant took a break from singing about the devious and duplicitous nature of women, it was almost always to reflect on the vast and mythical nature of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Not content to simply steal the blues, Zeppelin also mined Mordor for all it was worth on their eponymous albums II, III, and IV. If you’re thinking “The Lord of the Rings” is such an old book that it’s fair game, keep in mind that the series was only about 15 years old at the time of the band’s heyday — which might explain why the still at large human monster Jimmy Page was interested in them in the first place (look it up.) Eventually the band would get back to more grounded topics like doing drugs and worshiping Satan, but not before they made us all sit through their book reports on “Return of the King.”
4. Neutral Milk Hotel, “The Diary of Anne Frank”
Jeff Mangum was recording Neutral Milk Hotel’s first LP when he picked up “The Diary of Anne Frank,” read it in two days and, according to him, “completely flipped out.” The experience inspired his lo-fi indie rock opus “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” which weaves references to Frank throughout the album. Mangum became preoccupied with the young holocaust victim to the point of obsession, the heaviness of which may have contributed to his disappearance from the music industry and public life a few years later. To which we say: please read a second book, Jeff! Maybe one that’s less of a bummer this time? Because as much as we love the radical empathy contained on “Aeroplane,” mostly we’d like some new tunes.
3. The Doors, “The Doors of Perception”
We don’t believe in banning books, but there may have been a case for banning Jim Morrison from reading books — especially the one that would help him start the shittiest band of the 1960s. If Aldous Huxley had known how much keyboard noodling his mescaline scribblings would inspire, he might have gone straight edge.
2. Pixies, “The Bible”
At least the book Frank Black is stealing from is in the public domain, but do we really need another song about Samson and Delilah? Didn’t Leonard Cohen cover this when he did that Shrek song? Pixies’ “Doolittle” contains at least three Sunday School lessons. The aforementioned “Gouge Away” tells the story of Samson’s brutal end. “Dead” warns us all of the possible consequences of being too horny ala David and Bathsheba, and Biblical numerology is used to paint a picture of climate disaster in “Monkey Gone to Heaven.” All three are bangers, but it’s quite a departure from the songs about superheroes and big dicks that populated the band’s previous album “Surfer Rosa.” Church gave us all hang-ups Frank — you don’t have to yell about it!
1. Every Other Band Ever, Anything George Orwell wrote
These days, George Orwell is most recognizable as a reference used by right-wingers to describe any form of tolerance they don’t like, which is all of them. The leftist, anti-authoritarian author is most known for his novels “Animal Farm” and “1984.” Both books are strong warnings about the dangers of fascism, which modern fascists have interpreted to be about how mad it makes them when they are politely asked to use someone’s preferred pronouns. However, before the conservatives stole him, Orwell belonged to rock ‘n’ roll — so much so that it makes you wonder if musicians have read anything else. Most famously, Pink Floyd took “Animal Farm” and made it into a concept album called “Animals,” an LP that serves as the bridge from the band’s good, lean records to their shitty, overstuffed ones. Bowie got in on the fun, too, with “1984” — a song that nods subtly to the author’s most famous book by stealing its title. In the 1900s and early 2000s, Rage Against the Machine and Radiohead quote Big Brother himself — the former in “Testify” and the latter in “2+2=5” (which, for the record, is not true.) Orwell’s two biggest hits are well-trodden territory at this point, which begs the question — can’t these songwriters dig a little deeper? Orwell had non-fiction too! How about a concept album about the essay collection “Shooting the Elephant”? Or a rap-rock recap of “Homage to Catalonia.” Let’s face it, though: musicians are lazy. If most of them read Orwell at all, it was probably on audiobook.