Radio LBB: National Read a Book Day

Today, September 6th, is UK National Read a Book Day - so it makes sense to create a playlist of songs inspired by classic books.

1. Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights

Kate’s adaptation of Emily Bronte’s dark romance from 1847 made the UK Number One spot in 1978. Kate chose the song because she realised that she shared a birthday with the writer: 30th July.

2. Metallica - One

Metallica were inspired by Dalton Trumbo's famous anti-war novel 'Johnny Got His Gun' on their 1988 track 'One'

3. The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil

Mick Jagger has gone on record as saying that the song was inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, which centres around Satan paying a visit to the Soviet Union.

4. The Beatles - I Am The Walrus

The title of John Lennon's nonsensical composition from 1967 refers to Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus And The Carpenter, which is included in the 1871 book Through The Looking Glass.

5. Gary Numan – Are 'Friends' Electric?

The Gary Numan-penned track from his time in the Tubeway Army is said to have been influenced by Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? - Which eventually inspired the film Blade Runner. 

6. Led Zeppelin – Ramble On

This stonking track from Led Zep II (1969) makes reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic tome The Lord Of The Rings: “’Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor/I met a girl so fair/But Gollum, and the evil one crept up/And slipped away with her.”

7. Muse - The Small Print

According to the Muse Supermassive Wiki, this track from 2003's Absolution album is a re-telling of the classic story of Faust by the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe… but from the point of view of Satan.

8. Radiohead - 2+2=5

The title of this track from the Hail To The Thief album from 2003 is a reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the practice of "Doublethink" was used by the totalitarian government of Big Brother to rewrite history and opinions

9. Bloc Party - Song for Clay (Disappear Here)

The opening track from Bloc Party's second album Weekend In The City, is inspired by Bret Easton Ellis' novel Less Than Zero in which the main character's name is Clay

10. The Strokes - Soma

The Strokes' Soma is taken from the imaginary name for the hallucinogenic drug used to calm the masses in Aldous Huxley's 1937 novel, Brave New World.