Reading is Instrumental! Vol. I

Being a book and music nut, it was only natural that my love of both come together on this blog. (Just when one thinks I can not get any geekier, I do.) Books are a main component in my room--too many for my measly bookshelf to hold, they have weasled themselves onto my shelves. Stack after stack after stack; drama, horror, non-fiction, fantasy, poetry--all sit intertwined on my shelves. Originally this mix was to be a one shot deal, but since I have found 45+ songs with a literary base, I am going to break this up into volumes. Three sounds like a nice round odd number, but we'll see. While some of the musicians I am to offer up pain my ears in the worst of ways, they will still get recognition (as well as madd props) for at least reading one piece of literature and celebrating it with a song. I easily could dedicate an entire volume of this music-meets-literature bit to Tom Waits, but I will refrain...for now. Also? I know Wizard Wrock is an entire "genre" of music dedicated to the Harry Potter series, but I am excluding it from these mixes. I'm one of the biggest Harry Potter dorks you'll find, I just think Wizard Wrock is lame. And if I could find the recordings of Shel Silverstein reading his poetry, you bet it would be on like motherflippin' Donkey Kong.


Fisher -- Mad Girls Love Song ("Mad Girls Love Song" by Sylvia Plath--the lyrics are the poem word for word)

Metallica -- For Whom the Bell Tolls (For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway)

The Cure -- Killing an Arab (The Stranger by Albert Camus)

Tom Waits -- A Good Man is Hard to Find ("A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor)

Billy Bragg -- A Pict Song ("A Pict Song" by Rudyard Kipling)

MC Lars -- Ahab (Moby Dick by Herman Melville)

Annie Lennox -- Love Song For A Vampire (Dracula by Bram Stoker)

Bruce Springsteen -- The Ghost of Tom Joad (The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck)

The Police -- Don't Stand So Close To Me (Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov)

Leonard Nimoy -- The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Tom Waits -- We're All Mad Here (Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll)

Nirvana -- Beans (The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac)

Meg & Dia -- Monster (East of Eden by John Steinbeck)

Dream Theater -- Pull Me Under ("Hamlet" by William Shakespeare)

Simon & Garfunkel -- Richard Cory ("Richard Cory" by Edward Arlington Robinson)

Radiohead -- 2+2=5 (1984 by George Orwell)

Tom Waits -- Everything You Can Think (Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll)