Climb those library ladders and dust off the shelves to find music influenced by or making reference to authors, characters, quotes or plots in novels or any other form of the printed volume
“So many books, so little time.” - Frank Zappa.
The voracious reader, the ebullient book fan, the edgy eccentric, the pithy polymath – what better characteristics are there for the process of songwriting? It was just over 20 years this week that I was lucky enough to be present at a recording, in the old BBC TV Centre, of an early edition of BBC2’s Later with Jools Holland, now of course a cornerstone of British music TV for many a discerning and curious music lover. Elvis Costello, no slacker on literary reference and wordplay, was on the bill, but the showstealing highlight was the still relatively young band Radiohead, who had gigged for years, but were just beginning to break it big with The Bends, powerfully performing from that now classic album. In the short breaks between their songs, a friend with me at the time remarked how amusing and odd it was that frontman Thom Yorke didn’t busy himself with checking his guitar, or disappeared backstage for drink or drugs, as is expected of the self-respecting rock star. Instead he sat alone on the edge of the stage, quietly reading a book.
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