I have long been a fan of both Tolkien’s works as well as Zeppelin’s music. I see the similarites between the two, as most fans do. My question is if anyone knows of any other popular artists who use similar lyrical references to authors such as Tolkien or C.S. Lewis? Perhaps even Biblical references such as Prince’s “Seven”. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I’m going to move this to Cafe Society. You’ll probably get better answers over there.
The Waterboys, “Church not made by hands” opening line:
‘Bye-bye Shadowlands, the term is over, and all the holidays have begun’
A paraphrase of bits of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle just after they’ve gone to the real Narnia.
Hennadancer
Anthrax’s “Among the Living” is about Randall Flagg from “The Stand” by S.King of course.
lyrics
“Disease, Disease
Spreading the disease
With some help from Captain Trips”
and
“I am the walkin’ dude
I can see all the world”
Blind Guardian has some good tolkien songs. They have a whole cd called “Nightfall in Middle Earth”.
Here’s quite a thorough list of Tolkien-inspired songs:
“The Stand” by the Alarm is also about the Stephen King book dead0man mentioned.
Iron Maiden have songs about several literary works, including Dune (To Tame a Land), Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The 13-minute rendition of Rime of the Ancient Mariner is probably their best effort.
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are a Canadian indie band whose songs are predominantly based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. They’re definitely worth checking out.