1984

Randy California's Spirit also recorded a song inspired by 1984,it was simply titled 1984:great song.I also read long time ago a novel by Anthony Burgess clearly inspired by 1984,great book.George Orwell was a great writer and he fought against fascism.The least one can say is that he also had a difficult life(poverty and illness).I also like his writings about  his harsh time in Paris.

camel - nude

judas priest - nostradamus

David Bedford has recorded several SiFi themed songs including bits of works by Arthur C Clarke and Ursula LeGuin and a whole LP based on the Rime of The Ancient Mariner with ol' Jesus himself Robert Powell as narrator.

Edited by Karyobin - May 27 2008 at 08:31

Since someone mentioned Arthur C. Clarke, there is also "The Songs of Distant Earth". Mike Oldfield did an album entitled the same and inspired by the novel. It is pretty much ambient music, but high rated in the archives here. Mike Batt recorded an album with the London Symphony Orchestra and some vocalists about "The Hunting of the Snark", a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll. Blind Guardian's music is heavily influenced by the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, and to his "Silmarillion" there is the concept album "Nightfall in Middle-Earth".

zachfive wrote: David Bowie has a song entitled 1984.     -"Beware the savage jaw, of 1984"

How did we all forget THAT?  Good one.

And while we're at - Tull's A Passion Play was very loosely based on Dante's inferno - maybe.

Sort of . . . .

Well, the afterlife is mentioned, anyway.

OK, never mind.

Also, Porcupine Tree's latest was based on a book called "Lunar Park" by Brett Easton Ellis. 

Weston wrote: I have vague memories of a soundtrack to a movie version of 1984 that was done by  - The Eurythmics?  Or something like that.  It was pretty good.  I'll have to Wikipedia it.  Awful how the memory goes with age. ___________________ Currently listening to: Brand X - The X Files

You are correct, I was about to mention it when I saw your post.  I'm not a fan of the band but I have/like the soundtrack.

Large parts of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY were 'inspired' by Lewis Carroll's ALICE books. 'The Cinema Show' parodies a section of T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'. I also have the impression Ian Anderson must have been reading Eliot when he wrote 'Baker St. Muse'. It is sometimes said 'The Gates of Delirium' was 'based on' Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE but I'm sure Jonnie A. didn't get very far beyond the title! Many tracks on Steve Hackett's solo albums refer to fairy tales and fantasy literature, from the Narnia books to A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Also, Novalis' best-known track is a lovely setting of a poem by the German poet... Novalis!

Moatilliatta wrote: Well, I've never heard them, but there is a band called Wuthering Heights, and their most recent album is called Far from the Madding Crowd. The band's name is a novel by Emily Bronte and the title is a novel by Thomas Hardy. I enjoyed both of those books.

Wuthering Heights is a pretty good band if you're into prog/power/folk metal stuff.

Not completely prog, I know, but they are listed here so I'll mention them: many of Iron Maiden's songs are based on literature.

"2112" and "Anthem" by Rush are both based on Ayn Rand's novel Anthem.

"The Odyssey" by Symphony X is based on, guess what, The Odyssey.

I'm not sure if there's a connection between the two, but I think Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" might have influenced the Van der Graaf Generator song "Childlike Faith in Childhood's End". Many of Peter Hammill's lyrics are influenced by literature.

King Crimson's album "Beat" was influenced by the beat writers, as was Jim Morrison's work with the Doors, who took their name from the Aldous Huxley book "The Doors of Perception.

ELP's Jerusalem was an adaption of the poem  by William Blake I believe.

Alan Parson's Project- Tales of Mystery and Imagination
based on edgar allen poe stories