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This Book Is a Song
Five examples of the music and literary worlds mixing
Nick Cave (Photo: alterna2, via Flickr)
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Lonely Avenue, a collaboration album between Ben Folds and Nick Hornby, was released today on Nonesuch Records, but this isn’t the first time the music and literary worlds have combined. Below are five more examples of musicians writing books or authors making music.
#5. Lou Reed/Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
I can’t vouch for the quality of The Raven (meaning it’s not very good), but Reed does an admirable job of bringing in some cool guest stars for this concept album, including David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Steve Buscemi and, most memorably, William Dafoe on the title poem/song.
#4. Steve Earle, Doghouse Roses
Stories about drug addiction? Check. Vietnam? Check. Death penalty? Check. Steve Earle the Author ain’t much different than Steve Earle the Musician.
#3. Richard Hell, Go Now
Nearly 20 years after the Voidoids came Go Now, Hell’s debut novel about a drug-addicted punk rock star named Billy. Some have compared it to On the Road, but I think it’s actually closer to Hell’s debut album, Blank Generation: brilliant at times, pretentious at others. It does give an interesting insight into the mind of one of punk’s most influential names, though.
#2. Tom Waits/William S. Burroughs, The Black Rider
Before the album came the 1990 play, directed by the great Robert Wilson (who also worked with Lou Reed on POEtry). Based on the German folklore “Der Freischütz,” The Black Rider is about a man who must prove his worth as a hunter to win over his girlfriend’s father. But because Waits and Burroughs are the ones who wrote the thing, it involves magic bullets, a character named Pegleg and various characters going crazy.
#1. Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw Angel
Between working with the Bad Seeds and the Birthday Party, it’s amazing Cave found time to find write Ass Saw Angel, his first novel. The book, about a deformed mute boy in the Deep South guiding us through his own personal Hell, was written (sometimes in blood instead of ink!) in a dank Berlin apartment while Cave was a heroin addict. It’s even more amazing he got around to writing his second book, 2009′s The Death of Bunny Munro.