“The Ghost of Tom Joad" (1995); written and performed by Bruce Springsteen: The New Jersey rocker, still in his solo, post-Nebraska acoustic-guitar-and-harmonica mode, lifted the character Tom Joad from John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The singer/songwriter takes the theme of working class hardship in the 1930s and updates it to reflect the conditions of the underprivileged in the Southwest in the 1990s. There's “hot soup on a campfire under the bridge,” “families sleepin' in their cars,” “no home, no job, no peace, no rest.” Springsteen’s tone is somber. This isn’t the Kink’s “Dead End Street,” which depicts working class poverty alongside a jaunty brass section and darkly comedic lyrics. Rage Against The Machine would go on to make a heavy-handed cover of the song that replaces Springsteen’s quiet lament with their signature relentless raging bombast.
“Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” (1979); written Gary Numan; performed by Tubeway Army: As an alienated teen, Numan (who's “on the spectrum”) immersed himself in the works of authors Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard to cope with his feelings of isolation. The lyrics of this U.K. chart hit directly evolved from a series of sci-fi short stories Numan wrote about a bleak London 30 years in the future; an example: “It's cold outside/And the paint's peeling off of my walls/There's a man outside/In a long coat, grey hat, smoking a cigarette.”
The word "friends" is in quotation marks because "friend" refers to a humanoid android/robot hired for companionship or physical services. That was prescient of the songwriter. The narrator's android "friend" breaks down: "Only, mine's broke down/And now I've no one to love.” He's left alone, stranded in isolation and forced to confront his lack of human connection.
The song, which features Numan's alien-sounding vocals and synthesizers, became a number one hit in the U.K. despite lacking a hook. Numan’s eerie, robotic appearance along with the song's dark, fresh electronic sound bowled over the British youth culture. American radio stations, still hung up on disco, weren't ready for Numan’s cold, machine-like sound and spoken-word vocals.
“Strange Fruit” (1939); written by Abel Meerpool; performed by Billie Holiday: This haunting protest anthem was originally a poem titled "Bitter Fruit," written in 1937 by New York schoolteacher Abel Meeropol after he'd viewed a photograph of a Southern lynching. Holiday's performance took the poem and turned it into a soul-wrenching masterpiece with lyrics like this: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees.”
Holiday deviated from her usual singing style with restrained, unemotional vocals that made the horrific imagery of the words land with an extra punch. But the singer paid a high price for her message. Some people in high places didn't want attention brought to the lynchings. Harry Anslinger, the tyrannical Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, used Holiday's heroin addiction to take her down. Anslinger relentlessly stalked the singer, imprisoned her, and revoked her New York City cabaret card to destroy her career.
“Mack the Knife”; written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in 1928; as performed by Bobby Darin in 1959: The song dates back to Brecht and Weill's 1928 musical, The Threepenny Opera, an adaptation of John Gay’s 18th-century literary classic, The Beggar's Opera. It tells the story of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld named Macheath, aka "Mack the Knife": “Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear/And it shows them pearly whites/Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe/And he keeps it, out of sight.”
The power of this song lies in the contrast between cheerful, upbeat swing music and graphic descriptions of violence, as in the medieval “murder ballads” street musicians once sang: “Now did ya hear 'bout Louie Miller?/He disappeared, babe/After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash/And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor/Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?”
Bobby Darin delivered this career-making song with a charismatic swagger—smiling and snapping his fingers, Vegas style—while singing about MacHeath’s use of cement bags to sing dead bodies to the bottom of the river. Honorable mention goes to Louis Armstrong for his more laid back version of “Mack the Knife” in 1955. It's doubtful Darin would've known of the song otherwise.
“Sympathy for the Devil” (1968); written by Jagger/ Richards; performed by The Rolling Stones: “Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste.” It's hard to find more memorable opening words to a hit song than these Mick Jagger lyrics. The subject of this song with the hypnotic groove off of the Beggars Banquet album is suggested in its working title—”The Devil Is My Name.” Jagger has stated that his inspiration for the song came from Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, The Master and Margarita, which offered a complex, charismatic portrayal of Satan. While the Devil’s traditionally been depicted in literature as a red demon reeking of sulfur, Jagger—via Bulgakov—puts a fresh spin on this by portraying Satan as mysterious, elegant, and highly educated, although he'll still “lay your soul to waste” if you don't mind your manners around him.
Keith Richards took Jagger’s song and transformed it into an infectious, conga-driven Brazilian samba. The result was a provocative rock tour de force.
“Dead Souls” (1981); written and performed by Joy Division: This song was named after the title of Russian writer Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 novel about moral decay, corruption, and the absurdity of Russian bureaucracy and the landowner class. Deviating from the despair-driven political and social satire of Gogol’s novel, the song is a personal cri de coeur reflecting frontman Ian Curtis' pre-suicidal depression, feelings of alienation, and despair brought on by an inability to find meaning in his life.
Curtis expresses his dark emotions in a chilling delivery of the opening lyrics: "Someone take these dreams away, that plague me day and night.” The sprawling, two-minute instrumental introduction sets the stage for the singer to reveal his emotional turmoil with rawness and intensity. Nine Inch Nails’ excellent cover version of “Dead Souls” was part of the film soundtrack of The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
“Venus in Furs” (1967), written by Lou Reed, performed by The Velvet Underground & Nico: Based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novella Venus in Furs, in which the male main character seeks to be enslaved by his fur-adorned lover, the song’s theme—an open celebration of sexual masochism and fetishism—challenged songwriting conventions at the time.
The mesmerizing opening lyrics: “Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather/Whiplash girl child in the dark/Comes in bells, your servant, don't forsake him.” The dominant character—Whiplash Girl in those leather boots—is young and female. The submissive one is an older male (named Severin) who “comes in bells,” like a pet with a ringing collar. He begs his dominatrix to beat him to produce the pain that will provide him the emotional and/or spiritual relief he requires.
The sonic arrangement of “Venus in Furs”—a primitive and minimalistic hypnotic drone emanating from John Cale’s shrieking electric viola—amplifies the song's sadomasochistic lyrical themes. Moe Tucker’s ritualistic, stripped-down drumming style lends itself to the sacrificial atmosphere.
“Killing An Arab” (1978); written and performed by The Cure: This debut single by the English post-punk band was inspired by the pivotal moment in the 1942 novel The Stranger by Albert Camus in which the protagonist shoots his friend’s mistress' brother, a man who, in the book, is only identified as “the Arab”: Standing on the beach/With a gun in my hand/Staring at the sea/Staring at the sand/Staring down the barrel/At the Arab on the ground/I can see his open mouth/But I hear no sound.”
The murderer, “Meursault,” inexplicably blames his actions on the blinding heat and the oppressive sun, and then refuses to lie at his trial by feigning regret. Camus called Meursault “the only Christ we deserve,” presenting him as a secular martyr put to death by a society that prefers comfortable lies over uncomfortable truths. It's an obscure philosophical message that many readers misunderstood. The same thing happened with the song.
The inevitable controversy aside, the song's repetitious, minimalist instrumentation conveys the pervasive psychological numbness of the novella. Guitarist/frontman Robert Smith employs a Middle-Eastern scale to ground the story in its Algerian setting. Smith sings the chorus—"I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm the stranger, killing an Arab"—in a detached, offhand manner matching Meursault’s sense of disconnect towards his own actions.
“White Rabbit” (1967); written by Grace Slick; performed by Jefferson Airplane: This counterculture anthem, written by the band's vocalist when she was still a member of the band The Great Society, is a literary expression of the psychedelic era in which it became a big hit. For her trippy imagery, Slick drew on Lewis Carroll’s children’s books, Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In Carroll’s books, Alice shrinks and grows after eating cake and a mushroom and drinking from a bottle. Slick’s version has pills (a stand-in for various hallucinatory compounds) doing this: “One pill makes you larger/And one pill makes you small/And the ones that mother gives you/Don't do anything at all/Go ask Alice/When she's ten feet tall.”
As Slick put it, “Psychedelic drugs showed you that there were alternative realities.” The message of her song, delivered in her commanding mezzo soprano voice, was that there are scary elements within the realm of the expanded mind. The key to coming out of the “rabbit hole” intact, as Alice did, is to relax and let the drugs take you wherever they're going. It's like riding a roller coaster—frightening, but the thrill makes you want to do it again.
“The Lamia” (1974); written and performed by Genesis: This song off of the band's concept album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, is modeled after John Keats’ 1820 tragic narrative poem, “Lamia,” in which a serpent-woman, Lamia, takes human form to win the love of a man—Lycius. The two lovers retreat into their own love nest, but at their wedding the philosopher Apollonius exposes Lamia’s true identity. Lamia disappears and then Lycius dies.
In the song, “Rael” enters a mysterious chamber and encounters three “Lamias” described as beautiful serpentine women: “Rael stands astonished doubting his sight/Struck by beauty, gripped in fright/Three vermilion snakes of female face.” Rael canoodles with them (“With their tongues, they test, taste and judge all that is mine”) in a “long rose-water pool shrouded by fine mist.” When the creatures taste his blood they shrivel and die. Finally, Lamia eats them: “O Lamia, your flesh that remains I will take as my food."
Keats’ “Lamia" is a tragedy about how rationalism and the exposure of illusion destroys romantic love. Genesis’ “The Lamia” transforms this into a surreal, erotic encounter in which Rael’s intimacy with the three serpent-women ends in their deaths, which wasn’t his intention. He eats their flesh because they've drunk all of his blood and he needs sustenance.
“The Lamia,” obscure and dense, is a barrier to its accessibility. It's the opposite of a “singalong” song like “Mack the Knife.” The music, however, is another matter. The energy in Gabriel’s vocals and Steve Hackett’s guitar ramps up as the song progresses, while Tony Banks' atmospheric piano work adds delicacy. The result is a pleasant feeling of sensuality mixed with a sense of unease.