From Brontë to Ballard, Orwell to Okrey: the best songs inspired by literature – ranked! | music

20. Katy Perry – Fireworks (2010)

Katy Perry’s works sometimes have some wildly unexpected inspirations: California Gurls was spelled homage to Big Star’s September Gurls, while Firework was based on, wait for it, Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, specifically the line about how his favorite people “burn like gorgeous yellow Roman candles.”

19. Japanese Breakfast – Magic Mountain (2025)

She is the author of best-selling books, and Michelle Zauner’s latest Japanese Breakfast-themed album references Virginia Woolf, John Cheever, and, in its beautiful but wistful acoustic closing track, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, The Door Stopper at the Asylum. It seems to be a song that reflects Sawner’s reaction to the book, posting her images to explore her own relationship with fame and creativity.

18. Bomb the Bass – Powder Dust (1994)

Bug Powder Dust certainly isn’t the only song inspired by the work of William Burroughs – it’s the link between Duran Duran’s Wild Boys and Throbbing Gristle’s An Old Man Smiled – but it’s certainly the funniest. Justin Warfield delivers a rap song titled Naked Lunch, over a writhing bass line and a massive beat.

17. Taylor Swift – The Poulter (2024)

Taylor Swift described herself as “your favorite English teacher”, referring to the literary references in her songs. An expanded tortured poets section featured The Bolter, based on a recurring villain in Nancy Mitford’s novels (in turn based on the five-times-married British aristocrat Edina Sackville) with whom Swift was introduced.

16. Killer Mike – Willie Burke Sherwood (2012)

There are plenty of literary allusions in hip-hop, but Willie Burke Sherwood – Killer Mike’s first collaboration with El-P, with whom he later formed Run the Jewels – deftly combines references to Lord of the Flies through an autobiographical epic about growing up “hooked on literature” in the wrong part of town.

15. Therapy – Charlotte Sometimes (1981)

The obvious choice for a literary treatment is the Camus-inspired Killing an Arab, but let’s instead opt for the wonderfully gothic pop text Charlotte Sometimes, its title and theme taken from the wonderfully creepy 1969 children’s novel by Penelope Farmer. It apparently lived rent-free in Robert Smith’s head, and also inspired the song on The Cure’s 1984 album The Empty World.

14. Black Star – Thieves in the Night (1998)

In the cover notes for Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s debut album Blackstar, the latter wrote about discovering Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. The chorus of “Thieves in the Night”—a quiet, prickly musical exploration of racial identity and the perpetuation of stereotypes in hip-hop—is essentially a passage from the novel.

13. Nirvana – Smellless Beginner (1993)

At the height of his unhappy fame, Kurt Cobain apparently identified with the anti-hero of Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and was gobbled up by his assistants. If you doubt Cobain meant it, listen to the frankly terrifying way he repeatedly sings “Go Away” — it’s the sound of someone at the end of their rope.

12. Radiohead – Fade Out (1995)

Ben Okri’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Hungry Road – about a child trapped between the spirit world and life in Nigeria – inspired the drift of disturbing, dream-like images on the closing track of Bends, an artistic achievement that pointed the way to “computer goodness” and struck a rare optimistic note in its conclusion: “Immerse your soul in love.”

11. Rosalía – Pianso in Tu Mira (2018)

As if to prove from the start that she was markedly different from the average 21st-century pop star, every song on Rosalía’s debut album of original material was based on a chapter of the Occitan romance of 13th-century flamenca: Pienso en Tu Mirá’s dizzying confection of flamenco rhythms, bass dance rhythms and spectral pop is the third act.

10. David Bowie – We Are the Dead (1974)

It is known that Bowie wanted to write a musical based on George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the writer’s estate refused permission. Of the sequels that made their way into Diamond Dogs, We Are the Dead is a better choice, not least because it’s the most morbid and degenerate five minutes the Magic Age has ever produced.

9. Normal Leather – Warm (1978)

JG Ballard’s dystopian sci-fi influence has hung heavily on post-punk, from Gary Numan to Joy Division, but it has never been more evident than on Daniel Miller’s groundbreaking 1973 Crash-inspired hit. The unsettling yet danceable Warm Leatherette perfectly captures the novel’s disturbingly cold treatment of violence, horror and eroticism.

8. Kendrick Lamar – King Kunta (2015)

A lesson in African American literature laced with four minutes of firecracker rap with a very funky backing. The title is taken from Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots, but King Kunta’s words are turned into references to Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel. Bildungsroman The Invisible Man and Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart.

7. Magazine – Song from Under the Floorboards (1980)

Some of the songs are only tangentially related to their literary inspirations, but the zine’s masterpiece of post-punk existential tension and angst is clearly inspired by Dostoyevsky’s novella Notes from the Underground – check out the opening lines of each! – That the Russian author probably deserves credit for co-writing.

6. Kate Bush – The Sensual World (1989)

“Wuthering Heights” is better known, but its brilliance in presenting a classic novel is equal to “The Sensual World,” based on James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Bush was denied the rights to use Joyce’s actual text, so she translated Molly Bloom’s Dreams into a beautiful, sleepy, sentimental song that was better than the later version that used Joyce’s words.

5. Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now (1969)

The lyrics were created by Mitchell reading Saul Bellow’s 1959 novel Henderson, the Rain King while on the plane. A passage about clouds inspired the opening verses. Both Sides Now is a song Mitchell has grown into. If you want the more emotionally moving version, listen to her sing it at the age of 79 on her album Live at Newport.

4. Jefferson Airplane – The White Rabbit (1967)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has become one of the gems of American psychedelia that scares parents, and White Rabbit effectively challenges the Merry Pranksters – Can you? passes the sour exam? – In musical form. In a somewhat foreboding tone, she mixed images of Lewis Carroll to evoke a stark and disconcerting departure from normalcy.

3. Joy Division – Dead Souls (1980)

The late Ian Curtis’s library ranged from Sven Hassell to Kafka, Burroughs and Ballard: all of them made their way into his songs. In Dead Souls, the titular deceased of Nikolai Gogol’s satirical novel has crammed into Curtis’s head, “contacting” him against his will. “Someone take these dreams away,” he pleads, with a desperate, frightening effect.

2. The Velvet Underground – Venus in Fur (1967)

Lou Reed’s stated goal was to invest rock ‘n’ roll with the quality of literature: he was never more successful than when he was inspired by Leopold von Sacher’s infamous 1870 novel Masoch. A wall of detached guitar and dark viola, Venus in Furs is both dangerous and seductive: a perfect musical embodiment of its theme.

1. The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil (1968)

Marianne Faithfull’s suggestion that Mick Jagger read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita may be the most fortuitous literary recommendation in rock history. The resulting song was sublime, the music amplifying the malevolence and immorality of Jagger’s lyricism: with its samba-derived rhythm and cries of ecstasy, it sounded not ominous but catchy. Moreover, it came at the right time: the numbing optimism that accompanied the Summer of Love was beginning to fade; It seemed as if the world was getting darker – Jagger combined a line about the assassination of President Kennedy to reflect the news of his brother Bobby’s murder – and attitudes were hardening. Sympathy for the Devil was the perfect soundtrack to the chilling ’60s. Fifty-eight years later, it still seems astonishing.