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Tuesday Coffee Break: Writers In Song

Posted at 7:35 AM on January 25, 2011 by Steve Seel (44 Comments)
Filed under: 9:30 Coffee Break

We've got all things literary on the brain this morning, as we're expecting John Moe, host of Minnesota Public Radio's live show Wits to join us in the 9am hour to tell us about the show's upcoming 2011 season at the Fitzgerald Theater. Wits brings together writers, humorists and all around sharp funny-people to shed light on a different topic every month. So, for today's 9:30 Coffee Break, we're setting the atmosphere by putting together a set of songs that mention authors or take quotes from the writings of famous scribes. Help us come up with a few examples today for the 9:30 Coffee Break. It can be a reference to a character, a setting, song titles that are book titles, ect. Just make sure you provide the explanation behind your request!


Songs played:
"Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie" by Belle & Sebastian-
(Lyrics mention Kerouac, Judy Blume and Catcher In The Rye)

Ryan Adams "Sylvia Plath"

The Hold Steady "Stuck Between Stations"
(quotes Jack Kerouac and also references John Berryman, Minnesota poet)

The Smiths "Cemetry Gates"
(Lyrics mention poets John Keats, Williams Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde)

Billy Bragg and Wilco "Walt Whitman's Niece"

Comments (44)

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Sufjan Stevens

The song is based on the Flannery O'Connor short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." A southern family on vacation is killed by The Misfit and his gang after having car trouble. It begets one of my favorite literary quotes:

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

Posted by Cat | January 25, 2011 9:04 AM

Brush up your Shakespeare by Cole Porter from Kiss Me Kate

Posted by Jami | January 25, 2011 9:05 AM

Police- Don't stand so close to me

Posted by mark b | January 25, 2011 9:05 AM

Stuck Between Stations [poet John Berryman] -- the Hold Steady

Don't Stand So Close to Me [Nabokov] -- Police

The House That Jack Kerouac Built -- the Go-Betweens

Graham Greene -- John Cale

Romeo Had Juliette [sic] -- Lou Reed

The Ghost of Tom Joad [Grapes of Wrath] -- Bruce Springsteen | Rage Against the Machine

PLEASE no Wuthering Heights!!!!!!

Posted by lou | January 25, 2011 9:09 AM

The Ghost of Tom Joad - RATM (or the Boss)

- for those who aren't familiar with Tom Joad, he is a character in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Posted by Oj | January 25, 2011 9:09 AM

"Tender" by Blur refers to "Tender Is the Night," a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Posted by Adam | January 25, 2011 9:09 AM

Company of Thieves - Oscar Wilde.

Good song.

Posted by jc | January 25, 2011 9:10 AM

Virginia Woolf by the Indigo Girls!!

Posted by Sarah | January 25, 2011 9:10 AM

bright eyes- tereza and tomas from letting off the happiness.

it doesn't directly quote the book, but clearly is a reference to the two main characters in The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

Posted by Brie | January 25, 2011 9:12 AM

Time Won't Let Me Go
The Bravery
The song mentions the very popular Cherry Valance from the S.E. Hinton book, The Outsiders

Posted by jessica f | January 25, 2011 9:12 AM

"Hey Jack Kerouac" - 10,000 Maniacs

Posted by IndyR | January 25, 2011 9:12 AM

Anything from the album One Fast Move Or I'm Gone by Jay Ferrar and Ben Gibbard (the soundtrack for a documentary about Jack Kerouac's Big Sur, with lyrics taken from the book).

Posted by mike i | January 25, 2011 9:12 AM

"Afternoons & Coffeespoons" by Crash Test Dummies mentions T.S. Eliot and extracts lines and references from Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and is essentially a "reboot" of that poem.

"My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" by Moxy Fruvous mentions a ton of authors and I'm pretty sure I first heard it on the current.

Posted by Bill G | January 25, 2011 9:12 AM

"The Ghost Of Tom Joad" - Bruce Springsteen

"Flight Of Icarus" - Iron Maiden

"Pet Sematary" - The Ramones

"No Love Lost" - Joy Division

"I Wrote Holden Caulfield" - Screeching Weasel

Posted by Kevin | January 25, 2011 9:13 AM

Pennyroyal Tea - Nirvana
"Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld...."

Posted by Jen M | January 25, 2011 9:13 AM

We call upon the author to explain-Nick Cave (the non f-bomb version)
"Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Hemingway weirdly on wings and with maximum pain"

Posted by Jeff | January 25, 2011 9:14 AM

Bukowski - Modest Mouse

Posted by Jackie K. | January 25, 2011 9:15 AM

"Walt Whitman's Niece" - Billy Bragg & Wilco

Posted by IndyR | January 25, 2011 9:16 AM

Decemberists - Song for Myla Goldberg

Myla Goldberg is an American novelist

Posted by KG | January 25, 2011 9:17 AM

Crackle & Drag - Paul Westerberg (re: Sylvia Plath)

Posted by ken | January 25, 2011 9:17 AM

Nada Surf's Popular!

Based on a 1964 etiquette book by Gloria Winters called "Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity"

C'mon. You know you want to!

Posted by Angie | January 25, 2011 9:18 AM

"Pet Sematary" - The Ramones (from the film based on the Stephen King book)

Posted by IndyR | January 25, 2011 9:19 AM

Ramble On - Led Zeppelin (we all know the Tolkien reference, right?)

Sylvia Plath - Ryan Adams

Posted by Kari | January 25, 2011 9:20 AM

From Hank To Hendrix..... NEIL YOUNG

Posted by Barbara | January 25, 2011 9:20 AM

How about going the other direction and playing a song that a book is based on? I am currently reading "Meeting Across the River: Stories Inspired by the Haunting Bruce Springsteen Song".

Posted by Jeff | January 25, 2011 9:21 AM

Second Afternoons and Coffeespoons!

Posted by Susan | January 25, 2011 9:21 AM

Killing an Arab - The Cure
Cemetary Gates - The Smiths

Posted by wellst | January 25, 2011 9:22 AM

Stuck Between Stations (the Hold Steady) needs to be included! Not only was John Berryman a terrific poet, it's also a Minnesota story, albeit an incredibly sad one.

Gaslight Anthem's Old White Lincoln also references Yeats (I think inadvertently) in the line "Your old '55 that you drove through the roof of the sky, up above these indifferent stars"; the indifferent stars line is from Yeats' A Dream of Death.

Posted by tessa | January 25, 2011 9:22 AM

I second Bukowski by Modest Mouse

Paranoid Android - Radiohead (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Posted by Shannon | January 25, 2011 9:22 AM

"Strange Fruit" ~ Billie Holiday

Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. The song has been covered by numerous artists, as well as inspiring novels, other poems and other creative works.

Posted by Liza | January 25, 2011 9:23 AM

Turn! Turn! Turn! - The Byrds

Posted by derek | January 25, 2011 9:23 AM

Descent into Maelstrom by Radio Birdman

Loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe's short story "A Descent into the Maelström"

Posted by Dan Miggler | January 25, 2011 9:23 AM

Thought of one more...
Rosability by Idlewild.
"Gertrude Stein says that's enough."

Posted by Jen M | January 25, 2011 9:23 AM

I Don't Want To Get Over You- The Magnetic Fields
"I could dress in black and read Camus"

Posted by Jon | January 25, 2011 9:23 AM

From Hank to Hendrix... NEIL YOUNG

Posted by Barbara | January 25, 2011 9:24 AM

"Cemetry Gates" - The Smiths (John Keats, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde)

"Hey Jack Kerouac" - 10,000 Maniacs (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, etc.)

"Venus in Furs" by The Velvet Underground is about the two main characters from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novel of the same name.

Posted by Patrick | January 25, 2011 9:25 AM

"Strange Fruit" ~ Billie Holiday

Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. The song has been covered by numerous artists, as well as inspiring novels, other poems and other creative works.

Posted by Liza | January 25, 2011 9:25 AM

Zoo Animal's "Simone" mentions both Simone de Beauvoir and Blaise Pascal.

Posted by Phil | January 25, 2011 9:28 AM

Stuck between Stations by The Hold Steady -- quotes Jack Kerouac and also references John Berryman, Minnesota poet

Posted by LTB | January 25, 2011 9:28 AM

Afternoons and Coffeespoons....PLEASE!!!!

Posted by Angela | January 25, 2011 9:29 AM

Bukowski - Modest Mouse ( reference to Charles Bukowski)

Posted by ken | January 25, 2011 9:32 AM

"The Difference" by King's X! Besides being a great song, it's based on the C.S Lewis book "That Hideous Strength", not to be confused with the reference to my brother, Hosey, "That Heinous Stench."

Posted by kNoizey | January 25, 2011 9:33 AM

Sign No More by Mumford and Sons...quotes Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Posted by Brittany | January 25, 2011 9:34 AM

This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren"

Refers to Homer's The Odessey. The phrase "this mortal coil" is also a poetic phrase about the difficulties of life.

Posted by Nancy | January 25, 2011 9:40 AM

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