![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770906070_341_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Kate Bush, \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d video<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still a reader, one who spends some of my reading time professionally, as a book critic. Talk about wild and windy moors, temper and jealousy! Yet I come back again and again like Cathy, to my own \u201conly master,\u201d stories, words and their creators. In the words of Kate Bush, I can\u2019t \u201cleave behind my Wuthering Wuthering Wuthering Wuthering Heights …\u201c<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not the only ones. This month\u2019s new Emerald Fennell film adaptation of Bront\u00eb\u2019s novel, starring Margot Robbie <\/a>and Jacob Elordi<\/a>, promises to introduce millions of moviegoers to a classic novel into which Bront\u00eb\u2019 poured her soul, creating archetypical lovers \u2014 the mismatched, fevered kind who may never find happiness but can\u2019t quit each other.<\/p>\n Once I\u2019d heard the song, I was hooked, both on Bush\u2019s music (we all saw \u201cStranger Things\u201d blaze \u201cRunning Up That Hill\u201d<\/a> back to life<\/a>) and on a quest to find out how other musicians might use stories and novels in their work. Some songs are obviously based on fables and folktales, like Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cRamble On\u201d (\u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d) and \u201cAin\u2019t Necessarily So\u201d by Bronski Beat (the story of Moses, etc.) Given my fiction addiction, I started hunting out more obscure titles.<\/p>\n Well, if not obscure, at least more literary. David Bowie\u2019s \u201c1984\u201d was an easy win, based of course on the Orwell novel. Aficionados recognize that the Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cSympathy for the Devil\u201d derives from Bulgakov\u2019s \u201cThe Master and Margarita;\u201d and \u201cWhite Rabbit\u201d by Jefferson Airplane echoes \u201cAlice in Wonderland.\u201d There\u2019s even a tiny pop\/rock subgenre of songs based on Anne Rice\u2019s vampire novels: Sting\u2019s \u201cMoon Over Bourbon Street,\u201d Annie Lennox\u2019s \u201cLove Song for a Vampire,\u201d and Concrete Blonde\u2019s \u201cBloodletting.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s not forget the classical classics. Could two songs be more different than Steely Dan\u2019s \u201cHome at Last\u201d and the Soggy Bottom Boys\u2019 \u201cI am a Man of Constant Sorrow\u201d? Yet both are inspired by the \u201cOdyssey\u201d of Homer. Sadly, although inspired by the \u201cIliad\u201d of Homer, ABBA\u2019s \u201cCassandra\u201d doesn\u2019t reach Mount Olympus heights in quality (there are other egregious songs based on fine books like \u201cThe House at Pooh Corner\u201d by Loggins and Messina). Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d gets references in many lyrics, as well as a star turn in the Mark Knopfler ballad of the same name.<\/p>\n Knopfler (who, no coincidence, has a master\u2019s in literature) wrote my favorite-ever song based on a literary work: \u201cSailing to Philadelphia.\u201d It\u2019s a retelling in miniature of Thomas Pynchon\u2019s 1997 \u201cMason & Dixon,\u201d about the two Englishmen hired by the Penns and the Calverts to \u201cdraw the line\u201d that in 1765 began to divide the United States into North and South, via Maryland and Pennsylvania, and figured importantly during our nation\u2019s Civil War. Performed as a duet by Knopfler and James Taylor, the piece employs a great deal of expert finger-picking to mimic the sounds of wind, waves and seabirds while the two surveyors \u2014 one of land, one of stars \u2014 argue about how safe and successful their expedition will be.<\/p>\n \u201cSailing to Philadelphia\u201d inspired me to pick up Pynchon\u2019s novel after I first heard it in the early 2000s. I\u2019d never read anything by the famously reclusive author before (so sue me, I spent grad school as a medievalist) and I was absolutely riveted by his sense of play, of the looseness in the joints of his sentences and paragraphs. I\u2019ve since read two more (\u201cThe Crying of Lot 49\u201d and the quite recent \u201cShadow Ticket\u201d) and hope to get to \u201cVineland\u201d sometime in the near future.<\/p>\n That is what a great adaptation should do: make you curious about its source material. Not every listener, of course, will connect the Kate Bush song title to Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s novel (and, thankfully, most listeners will fail to connect ABBA\u2019s \u201cCassandra\u201d with Homer), but those who do might choose to read the book. What could be more relevant right now than Bowie\u2019s \u201c1984\u201d and its basis in Orwell\u2019s novel?<\/p>\n Speaking of late-stage capitalism: If Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201chappiness\u201d (sic) sends some of her die-hard stans to \u201cThe Great Gatsby,\u201d they may see \u201cthe green light of forgiveness,\u201d referencing Daisy\u2019s dock signal, as its own illusion. I\u2019m under no illusion that each and every lyrical allusion to literature will foster a reading revolution.<\/p>\n However, I also know that I\u2019m far from the only book nerd out here who keeps a log (written or remembered) of songs based on literary works. What\u2019s your favorite? What\u2019s the most obscure one you can recall? Let\u2019s build a great big list.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, I\u2019ll be over here in my reading nook, listening to Kate Bush as I reread \u201cWuthering Heights.\u201d Pro tip: The book, my friends, is always better.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770906070_234_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770906070_590_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n