list all bands and song titles and lyrics copped from William S Burroughs here

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I am re-reading "Naked Lunch" and the number of phrases from Burrough's work which have been turned into band names, song titles, or lyrical snippets seems large. Here's what I can think of, but I am sure there are more . . .

bands:

Soft Machine
Clem Snide
Canned Heat
Steely Dan
Junk Sick Dawn

Steppenwolf said that the phrase "heavy metal thunder" came from Burroughs, didn't they?

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

Joy Division - Interzone
Throbbing Gristle - The Old Man Smiled

― Old School (sexyDancer), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

Grant Hart's Nova Mob.

― owen moorhead (i heart daniel miller), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

Nova Mob ah xpost

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

Isn't there a band called the Mugwumps?

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

Duran Duran "Wild Boys"

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

I thought canned heat was a ref. to Sterno?

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

Bomb The Bass - 'Bug Powder Dust'

more a dedication than a lift,

Gordon Mumma - "Megaton for Wm. Burroughs"
http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/piece.pl?pid=91

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:40 (twenty years ago)

I couldn't find the song title I was looking for but I did find a copy of "electronic revolution" online, just in case anyone needs it handy at work

http://archive.groovy.net/dl/elerev.html

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:41 (twenty years ago)

This is gonna be a long, depressing thread, isn't it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:41 (twenty years ago)

I'm happy enough

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/authors/william-s-burroughs/burroughs-anderson-70.jpg

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

http://www.musicmatic.de/M/MeatBea1.jpg

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Seven Souls - Material
Spare Ass Annie - Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
There was a shortlived 80s band called Naked Lunch who had a banned single - if memory serves - called Rabies.

― 11V, Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:53 (twenty years ago)

http://www.spikemagazine.com/recordreviews/nycghostsandflowers.jpg

― jw (ex machina), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:54 (twenty years ago)

Drew I believe the "heavy metal thunder" reference is from "Nova Express".

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

From Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life": "Here comes Johnny Yen again"

Also, I believe James had a song called "Johnny Yen", but they borrowed it from Iggy for all I know.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 20 October 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

Burroughs has an elaborate prose explanation of what a "Johnson" is- it's somebody who won't rat on you, who's on the level with you, who won't snitch- and I'm wondering if Antony's band is named after this concept. I should ask him.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 20 October 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

there's a indie rock band from Austria called
Naked Lunch

― sibsi (sibsi), Thursday, 20 October 2005 20:01 (twenty years ago)

Guapo - Towers Open Fire
Carnival Art - Antihero (about WB, refs to exploding tickets etc:)

― mzui (mzui), Thursday, 20 October 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

There's a bad Russian band in NYC called Interzone.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 20 October 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

Isn't the Antony band more likely to have its name 'cuz "Johnson" is slang for a cock? But perhaps not.

I think "heavy metal" is by far the most impressive contribution of WSB to rock. Followed by Steely Dan, of course.

Drew, where's the musical reference to "Junk Sick Dawn"?

― carl w (carl w), Thursday, 20 October 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

There was an L.A. band called Viscious Fish and I'm pretty sure I saw that phrase in Naked Lunch. Don't know if they got it from there, though.

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 20 October 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

By the way, the Disposable Heroes track is a collaboration with WSB, isn't it? From the Spare Ass Annie & Other Tales album? By the same token you've got Laurie Anderson's work with him circa Language Is A Virus (WSB's concept) and Tom Waits' work with him on The Black Rider, as well as the various collaborations on the Dead City Radio compilation (produced by Hal Willner), Ministry's "Just One Fix," Material's "Hallucination Engine," in U2's "Last Night on Earth" video, with Kurt Cobain on "Priest They Called Him." More?

Did Bowie, who famously borrowed cut-up technique circa Diamond Dogs, have any direct Burroughsian lyrical borrowings? Did Patti Smith?

Are there any hip-hop Burroughs references, not counting Disposable Heroes?

― carl w (carl w), Thursday, 20 October 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Vicious Fish the band I meant above, I think, and they're from SF.

Also Dead Fingers Talk is a band and a WSB book title.

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 20 October 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

Some Manics lyrics ("Motown Junk" and "You Love Us" especially) borrow quite heavily from Burroughs

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 20 October 2005 22:42 (twenty years ago)

xpost Burroughs refers constantly to the "junk sick dawn" (i.e. the morning after you run out of heroin and start to jones for more) throughout "Naked Lunch".

Yeah, there are lots of Burroughs related musical projects, I guess I was just looking at who was inspired by, but not a collaborator with, WSB, though it's good to point all of those out. I am sure there are some Bowie lyrics somewhere that riff on it- I guess also VU's "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" is about Burroughs, isn't it?

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Friday, 21 October 2005 00:17 (twenty years ago)

Innerzone Orchestra

― ken taylrr never her (ken taylrr), Friday, 21 October 2005 00:40 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

I am in the band "Junk Sick Dawn" (1993 to present- based in California), you can find a page about us at http://www.iuma.com. We got our name from "Naked Lunch", as we are all fans of Burroughs and other writers of The Free Word.
As for the "Mugwumps", that was the original name of "The Mamas and the Papas", and Burroughs coined the term "Heavy Metal", about a character called "Uranium Willy- The Heavy Metal Kid", but I forget what book.
"Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted"
Cheers, Taito

― Taito, Tuesday, 29 November 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

the mick jagger track on the 'performance' s/t (scene in harry flowers' office': "the man who works behind the man who works the soft machine".

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

'performance' itself have strong burrougsian refs/feel in other ways.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

I seem to recall Gary Numan's lyrics on the first two Tubeway Army albums are full of straight lifts from Burroughs. I'm almost tempted to go to a Gary Numan lyric site to check this out but I'm not quite that sad...... yet.

Canned Heat isn't from Burroughs.

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (and His Endless Stupid Jokes) (Dada), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

tortoise - benway

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 12:27 (twenty years ago)

The Subliminal Kid was a member of the Nova Mob, taken as a sub-moniker by DJ Spooky.

― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

Thin White Rope was taken from Burroughs, wasn't it? Thought it was his description of ejaculate.

I'm pretty sure that Burroughs got that whole Johnson thing from the Jack Black book 'You Can't Win' which was an autobiographical tome dealing with criminality and hobo culture in the early 20th century. It's a good read and I think that it was Amok Press who put out an edition in the late 80's with a nice Joe Coleman cover if you can find that.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

And yes, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Antony named his particular Johnson after that book.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

Burroughs coined the term "Heavy Metal"

That's the common recieved wisdom. But it's not in the context of music and the actual person who coined the usage in music journalism in 70 or 71 was Metal Mike Saunders. And Burroughs was no influence, if you know Saunders, who was a student at U of Texas at the time. Saunders coined it in a record review and shared it in correspondence with his colleagues at the music mags (Bangs, Meltzer, Marsh). It was slow to be picked up. Other terms like "downer rock" and "third generation rock" were used to describe the nascent genre and, obviously, none of them stuck. Slowly, Saunders' meaning of heavy metal was adopted it more widely in the next couple of years.

There aren't a lot of people who have seen the old record review archives in such magazines, simply because they're not easily accessible and the collections are far and wide. But if you look in them it's easily traceable. Someone will eventually put them on the web or into a book to settle the matter more widely.

― George the Animal Steele, Tuesday, 29 November 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

GREAT POST

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 18:47 (twenty years ago)

The Keith LeBlanc song Taxcider has a sample of Burroughs saying "The Heavy Metal Kid".

Please help ID this track - poss. On-U Sound: Andy Fairley?

― Joe Bon Jonvi (Joe Bon Jonvi), Tuesday, 29 November 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

A steely dan was a strap on that squirts milk, there were 2, but the first one got chewed to bits in the upper baboon asshole...

― Denise Robbins, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

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