Is That All There Is?

Vandaag viert de Britse zangeres Polly Jean Harvey haar 39ste verjaardag. Hier haar bloedstollend mooie versie van "Is That All There Is?", een lied dat gecomponeerd werd door Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller en bekend geworden is in de versie van Peggy Lee in 1969, het geboortejaar van PJ. De allesbehalve lichtvoetige en zelfs existentialistische tekst zou geïnspireerd zijn door het verhaal "Disillusionment" van Thomas Mann. En dan durft men soms beweren dat pop niet geletterd kan zijn. Voor degenen die meer bewijzen nodig hebben: In bijlage 15 andere popsongs die op boeken gebaseerd werden.




GELETTERDE POP - DE BIJSLUITER

1. Akron/Family - Franny/You're Human
"Please Lord give me strength to be nobody 'cause I am not my thoughts'
("Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger)

2. Modest Mouse - Bukowski
"Woke this morning and it seemed to me
That every night turns out to be a little bit more like Bukowski
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read but God, who'd want to be such an asshole?"
(about writer Charles Bukowski)

3. Bjork - Sun In My Mouth
"I will wade out 'till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth"
("I Will Wade Out" by E.E. Cummings)

4. The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes
"Night after night she lay alone in bed, her eyes so open to the dark
The streets all looked so strange, they seemed so far away
But Charlotte did not cry"
("Charlotte Sometimes" by Penelope Farmer)

5. Of Montreal - The Past Is a Grotesque Animal
"I fell in love with the first cute girl that I met who could appreciate Georges Bataille
Standing at a Swedish festival discussing Story of the Eye"
("Story of the Eye" by Georges Bataille)

6. Idlewild - Roseability
"Gertrude Stein said "that’s enough"
(I know that that’s not enough now)
Rose, ability. There is no roseability"
("Sacred Emily" by Gertrude Stein)

7. Babyshambles - East of Eden
"There's a slow train rumblin' east of a place called Eden
The wind blowin' in proud as the trees upon the plain
And a stranger's voice talked to me of liberty and freedom"
("East of Eden" by John Steinbeck)

8. How Airplanes Fly - Luna, I Believe in You
"You're strange but in a good way, you keep things interesting
I never know what you'll say next, you always keep me guessing
Who cares if you've got radishes in your ears? Not me!
Maybe they're telling you something we can't hear, something that goes like this"
("Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J.K. Rowling)

9. Los Campesinos! - Don't Tell Me to Do the Maths
"We know that we could sell your magazines
If only you would give your life to literature just
Don't read Jane Eyre!"
("Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë)

10. The Decemberists - Song for Myla Goldberg
"Sew wings to your pigeon toes
Put paper to pen to spell out Eliza"
("Bee Season" by Myla Goldberg)

11. Billy Bragg ft Wilco - Walt Whitman's Niece
"My girl had told us that she was a niece of Walt Whitman, but not which niece
And it takes a night and a girl and a book of this kind a long long time to find its way back"
(mentions poet Walt Whitman)

12. Sound Team - No More Birthdays
"Let's speed it up so we can slow back down
Kafka on the shore, ah Kafka on the shore!
Rising up so we can rise back down
Oh Kafka on the shore"
("Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami)

13. Kate Bush - Cloudbusting
"I wake up crying. You're making rain
And you're just in reach
When you and sleep escape me"
("A Book of Dreams" by Peter Reich)

14. The Divine Comedy - A Woman of the World
"Just you wait - hey, give the girl a break
And a fifty dollar bill will see to that
That ain't enough to feed the cat
Serve up the rats and super rats
Well they just get fatter while she fades away"
("Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote)

15. Radiohead - My Iron Lung
"A total w.a.s.t.e. of time, my iron lung"
("The Crying Of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon - incidentally
the same novel that inspired Yo La Tengo's "The Crying of Lot G")

(Bron: Steven B. en Eliza K.: Songs about books: a mix tape)