Songs based on Poems/About Poets

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Can you think of any songs based upon poems, or about poets?

Sarah

― sarah boucher (sarahla), Monday, 22 August 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

Songs based on poems? Hundreds of them - how long you got?

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

About a poet:

Slapp Happy - Mr Rainbow (about Rimbaud)

And, for that matter, based on a poem:

Slapp Happy - Mr Rainbow

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

Some more:

Incredible String Band - Douglas Traherne Harding (Thomas Traherne)
Robin Williamson - For Mr. Thomas (but you can call him Dylan)
John Cale - John Milton

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Dave Schramm uses Emily Dickinson poems for inspiration/source material a lot:

Walk to Delphi
Number Nineteen
Home
A Woman's Name

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Monday, 22 August 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven--
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given--

Emily Dickinson (from i never saw a moor)

I ain't never spoke to God
And I ain't never been to heaven
But you assumed I knew the way
Even though the map was given

Noel Gallagher "My Big Mouth" from Be Here Now

― JD from CDepot, Monday, 22 August 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Noel Gallagher "My Big Coincidence" from Be Here Now

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

BULLSHIT

no way thats a coincidence. is it so shocking that noel gallagher could steal from a poet, i mean, he stole from everyone else :-) (and i love him for it)

― JD from CDepot, Monday, 22 August 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

The Verlaines "Death and the Maiden"
probably other stuff by the verlaines, too.

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

no way thats a coincidence. is it so shocking that noel gallagher could steal from a poet

Oh don't silly, it's not that strange a couple of lines that anyone coudn't have come it with independently

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

Velvet Underground - European Son (to Delmore Schwarz)

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

... and Lou Reed - My House (the silly old fart's still banging on about Delmore Schwarz 15 years later!)

― Diddyismus the Blind (of Alexandria) (Dada), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

i just finished In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Schwartz, it was pretty good, some of the short stories were kinda borin

― JD from CDepot, Monday, 22 August 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

Deb Talan, "Gladdest Thing" - chorus is Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Afternoon On A Hill".

― shanecavanaugh (shanecavanaugh), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

There is that Bonnie Prince Billy & Marquis de Tren EP with lyrical adaptations of Rabindranth Tagore poems.

― Oklahomie, Monday, 22 August 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Andrew Bird's "First Song" is based on Galway Kinnell's poem of the same name.

― mayakovsky's cousin, Monday, 22 August 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

Every song on....

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000001FN3.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 22 August 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

JJ Burnel - "Ozymandias" (lyrics by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 22 August 2005 19:30 (twenty years ago)

Blue Aeroplanes - "The Applicant" (based on the Plath poem of the same name).

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 22 August 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)

Shimmer Kids Underpop Association-"Full Color Love Affair" mentions Cummings and Bukowski

― WillS, Monday, 22 August 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

All the songs on Sahara Blue by Hector Zazou with a bunch of guest artists take lyrics from Rimbaud.

― Curt (cgould), Monday, 22 August 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

No mention yet of Sheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do"?

It's not a very good poem, but still...

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5822

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 22 August 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

U2, "Dirty Day"

Dedicated to Bukowski, takes its outro lyric from the collection "The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills."

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 22 August 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Also, while we're on U2, "The Ground Beneath Your Feet" -- although, I guess, Salman Rushdie specifically wrote that piece of tripe as a song lyric.

Iron Maiden's "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner," surely.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 22 August 2005 22:05 (twenty years ago)

Electrelane's "The Valleys," whose lyrics are taken from the poem 'A Letter Home' by Siegfried Sassoon. Amazing song, too. Nice farfisa organ grooves and soaring choirs.

― Salvador (Salvador), Monday, 22 August 2005 22:07 (twenty years ago)

bjork's turned a couple e.e. cummings poems into the songs, "sun in my mouth" 'mother heroic" and "sonnets/unrealities"

― Johann (johann), Monday, 22 August 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

"The Star Spangled Banner"
Blake's "Jerusalem"

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 22 August 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

two songs on the last camera obscura ep are robbie burns poems.

― keith m (keithmcl), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

"Journal of an Airman" by the Blue Aeroplanes

― youn, Tuesday, 23 August 2005 01:05 (twenty years ago)

Sonic Youth's "Mote" from Goo is Lee Ranaldo's response to a poem by Sylvia Plath, "The Eye-Mote."

― zero, Tuesday, 23 August 2005 01:12 (twenty years ago)

Blue Aeroplanes - "The Applicant" (based on the Plath poem of the same name).

Bah, you beat me to it. And such a good song, as well!

― Edward Bax (EdBax), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 01:17 (twenty years ago)

Divine Comedy - "Lucy" (based on a Wordsworth poem)

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 02:18 (twenty years ago)

Antony and the Johnsons, "The Lake" is based on Poe.

The Communards' "If I Could Tell You" is based on Auden.

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

Idlewild, "Scottish Fiction"

― casey (t. fiend), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 06:39 (twenty years ago)

Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" is based on a poem by Ted Berrigan called...."People Who Died."

― shookout (shookout), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

Sinéad O'Connor, Troy

No, not The Iliad. It's Yeats' "No Second Troy"

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 17 November 2005 03:28 (twenty years ago)

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