Listening Literarily

The things we read have a way of creeping into our subconscious and blooming into our realities without us even knowing. For artists, books and stories can bleed into their music in more ways than not. Catching literary references in music is like watching a movie with 3D glasses: your understanding of the story exponentially increases. By drawing on existing characters and stories, musicians create a listening experience filled with easter eggs for the well-read listener. When this interaction is properly constructed, it can create opportunities for artists to form deeper connections with their fans.

The first song that comes to mind that references literature is Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights.” Is this connection between Kate (short for Catherine) Bush and Emily Brontë’s main character Catherine only because they share a name or is there more to their story that only the Catherines know? The song itself couldn’t sound less like the novel’s depressing and angsty ambiance set by Brontë’s Catherine. Bush’s characteristically high voice mixed with twinkling strings and feathery piano creates a feeling of wonder and playfulness. In the book “Wuthering Heights,” Catherine’s relationship with Heathcliff lacks this jovial quality and instead is associated with more solemn themes about race and class. Is this a bad literary reference? Perhaps not. Rather than sinking into a dark and depressing lyrical story, Bush has taken the longing, wondrous feelings in the novel and given them her own spin. She creates a parallel story where Kate – the musical icon – longs for her own Heathcliff up in her clouded world of pop.

Unlike Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” Stevie Nicks’ haphazard attempt at cross referencing in “Wide Sargasso Sea” demonstrates how a literary reference can be a detriment to a track. The song shares its name with the Jean Rhys novel “Wide Sargasso Sea,” which is about Bertha Mason, the mad woman locked in the attic in the novel “Jane Eyre.” It is widely known that Stevie Nicks had a passionate love affair and continued contentious relationship with her bandmate Lindsay Buckingham that fueled a lot of their music. Rhys’ novel does not detail a love affair, but the slow destruction of Bertha Mason through her growing relationship with her soon-to-be husband. In “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Nicks equates her relationship with Buckingham to Bertha’s relationship with her husband. She references the beautiful scenes in Jamaica that Bertha describes as they are stripped from her by her husband – a feeling Nicks relates to her art and fame in the context of Buckingham. The electric guitar and scruffy vocals convey how telling this story made Nicks feel like she was fighting a ruthless fight. While a little bit tone deaf, this literary connection is thus used to show the intensity she felt with Buckingham. It may not be an ideal reference, but it is representative of how stories inform artists.

Relating a complicated love story to yourself is a classic case for any romantic – not just pop singers. Where it becomes valuable is in how you manipulate a story to mirror your own. “What She Said” by the Smiths takes inspiration from Elizabeth Smart’s novel “By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.” Smart’s novel is a tragic memoir detailing a love affair that was so painfully gripping that Smart experienced blood-boiling levels of devotion. Smart lives, breaths, and devours her lover, leaving nothing untouched by the sudden absence of his presence. 

The Smiths often sing about painfully tragic moments and feelings, which contrasts their use of upbeat drums and guitars. Morrissey, the lead singer of The Smiths, has a voice that weeps in its belts, longing for an end that never comes and leaves you in tears on the dancefloor. The chorus, “What she said, ‘I smoke / ‘Cause I’m hoping for an early death / And I need to cling to something,’” is where you hear both Morrissey and Smart in unison; Morrissey sings Smart’s words, relaying his own feelings in her beautifully solemn language. What we are left with is a song made by and for longing lovers. 

Every reference, clear and unclear, seems to work for The Police in their song “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.”  With heavy references to Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” one of the most controversial books of the 20th century, The Police taunt the listener with their awkward connection to the novel’s main character. Nabokov’s book is a first person recounting of thirty-six-year-old Humbert Humbert’s deluded infatuation with nine-year-old nymphet Dolores (Lolita). The first person narration in the novel makes the reader forget what's actually happening and leaves them thinking that the events of the novel are simply a complicated love story. Similarly, the opening lyrics “Young teacher, the subject / Of schoolgirl fantasy” blend into the staccato of the hi-hat so you unknowingly bob your head along to the provocative story. Humbert Humbert, does just the same; the narrator and pedophile conveys such care and dedication to his beloved Lolita that many readers are left confusing his feelings with the makings of a real love story, forgetting just how old Lolita is. “Lolita” may not be a real love story but “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” is a real hit, and music is often reduced to its sound and not its lyrical content. 

What is the point of examining these songs so closely? A simple lyric about a schoolgirl fantasy can get trapped in a listener’s head, playing on repeat simply because it is catchy. Books, however, are only remembered after you’ve dedicated your focus to them. The focus and attention needed to remember a story is how literary references create depth in music – it’s where the artist’s time and attention shines in a new light. Performers know how to perform and make great music for their fans, but the key to someone's heart is in what they are reading.