Books So Good They Wrote A Song About It
Just a fun little list of books that have inspired songs. Please list the book and the song with the artist in your suggestions, or if it's a concept album based on a book, just include the book and the album with the artist. I will not be including any books by JKR, Neil Gaiman, or Orson Scott Card, or songs by Iced Earth. Will not be adding musicals based on books, songs written for films based on books, or songs that are classic poems to music.
created by farron
last updated August, 2026
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Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice // Moon Over Bourbon Street by Sting The Veldt by Ray Bradbury // deadmau5 Roots by Alex Haley // Madinka by Sinead O'Connor Ishmael by Daniel Quinn // Do the Evolution by Pearl Jam Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch // The Velvet Underground 1984 by George Orwell // David Bowie The Odyssey by Homer // Symphony X The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri // Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennit The Rocket Man by Ray Bradbury // Rocket Man by Elton John Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury // Something Wicked (That Way Went) by Vernian Process Dracula by Bram Stoker // Sincerely Yours, Jonathan Harker by Schoolyard Heroes Orlando by Virginia Woolf // Orlando in Love by Japanese Breakfast Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier // Tori Amos The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien // Nightfall in Middle-Earth (concept album) by Blind Guardian The Hobbit // Blind Guardian The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway // Garbage The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things // Cherry Lips by Garbage Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte // Kate Bush Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay // Nemo by Nightwish Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien // Blind Guardian The Wheel of time series by Robert Jordan // Blind Guardian A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin // A Voice in the Dark ; War of Thrones by Blind Guardian The Once and Future King by TH White // A Past and Future Secret by Blind Guardian The Dark Tower series by Stephen King // Somewhere Far Beyond by Blind Guardian
as a metal fan i suddenly realize i've made a mistake
farronOP
Ok Iron Maiden's done so. So many. I'm just including the ones I can personally recall and aren't Orson Scott Card lmao
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge // The Ghost of Navigators Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis
this is such a cool list, I did not expect to see deadmau5 on here wow 🤯
farronOP
That one was suggested by @ayzrules!
farronOP
Medea by Euripides // My Medea by Vienna Teng
Blind Guardian populating half the list is so great. What’s your favorite, I’ve had Tanelorn stuck in my head for months
farronOP
Sarah by JT LeRoy // Bats For Lashes
randomly reading about JT LeRoy's questionable persona, realized the novel Sarah sounded very similar to the Bats For Lashes song, checked and yup, another song inspired JT LeRoy!
farronOP
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys // Stevie Nicks
Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway // written by the Bee Gees, performed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb // Hand of Sorrow by Within Temptation
farronOP
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky // Sarah Slean
The Stranger by Albert Camus // Killing an Arab by The Cure
Sorry!! 😂. They are super similar genre-wise/time-wise. Absolutely LOVE this list btw! I was giggling at The Hobbit, bc I thought you added it for Leonard Nemoy’s “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” (which is hilariously awful).
farronOP
Via my dad -
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner // Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll // White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
Kpop brainrot incominggggg 🫨 “Hyde” by VIXX, inspired by The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde “Scientist” by VIXX, inspired by Perfume: The Story of a Murderer “Magic Shop” by BTS, inspired by Into the Magic Shop by James Doty “Wonderboy, the Aerialist” by GWSN, inspired by Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by ARTMS, inspired by the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Also Rina Sawayama has a song “Frankenstein” which seems to be inspired by the book
Magic Shop 🤗
Also to add to this! "Don Quixote" by Seventeen, inspired by Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, and "Super" also by Seventeen, inspired by The Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-En 🤩
farronOP
Added!
this is an EPIC idea
The Screwtape Letters for The Oh Hellos’ Dear Wormwood <3
further kpop brainrot, specifically BTS lol. their Wings album was heavily inspired by Hermann Hesse's Demian and their other album Map of the Soul: Persona was inspired by Murray Stein's book of the same name, Jung's Map of the Soul.
Thank you farron. You deserve flowers everyday 😌🌞🙂↕️
farronOP
!! Thank you, how sweet!
I needed to express my gratitude for this list and just hitting save immediately was not enough!
I loooove this list! I think I haven't seen Four Walls by Bastille mentioned here? It's inspired by In cold blood by Capote (along with the real life case that inspires both)
farronOP
Added!
bookmarking this list for the song recs #reverseUNO
This is epic!!
farronOP
Thanks! It's such a niche interest of mine, and I realized a long time ago most people really aren't that interested to hear something like "did you know that Garbage fan favorite song "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)" is inspired by JT LeRoy's The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things? But... here on my own list... I can gather this information! Mwahaha!
OH MY GOD WHAT how has it been 85 years and this is the first I'm ever hearing of this. the avalanche of times I listened to that song back in the day welp
farronOP
Yep! It's my favorite songs of theirs from that era, and Shirley Manson mentioned it a few times. The Trick is to Keep Breathing is also inspired by a novel of the same name.
My favorite is The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim's Big Ego, for The Flash comics 😊
farronOP
I don't know much about The Flash, is there a particular book or run the song's based off of, or which would you suggest?
Honestly I haven't read a lot of the comics 😅😅 I watched the TV show. And I adore the song 😊
farronOP
I see! Well, I went ahead and added the comic that introduced Barry Allen. Apparently the writer is/was the uncle of one of the members of Jim's Big Ego.
Cool!
this is so cool!! the only one I can think of that you haven’t got is king Lear - im pretty sure hope in the air by Laura marling is inspired by it
farronOP
Added! This sounds interesting, I'll have to give it a listen. :)
HOLD ON IVE GOT ANOTHER ONE fleurs captives by Nicole dollanganger is based on flowers in the attic by Virginia Andrews
farronOP
Also added!
rebbeca by daphne du maurier! taylor swift confirmed that tolerate it was inspired by the unnamed main character
farronOP
Added!
Farron I love your brain
farronOP
Thank you. This is a subject I've spent way too much time thinking about and PB is the place I finally get to put the knowledge to use LMAO
Not to be peak white girl but we of course have Romeo and Juliet insuring Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”
Thank you for your suggestion! When I was doing initial research for this list I came across this one a lot and decided against it. Similar to some songs I know that namedrop Lolita, it feels like the song interacts more with the idea of these characters as larger pop culture figures rather than being directly inspired by the story. There are several moments in this song that don't seem to align much with the events in the play.
That’s fair, I always kind of saw it as a rewriting it to not be a tragedy
Twilight Zone by Golden Earring was inspired by the original book version of The Bourne Identity! I just learned this recently so I'm very excited for it to be relevant!
farronOP
Ohhh very interesting! Added!
The song hand of sorrow was inspired by the farseer trilogy!
farronOP
Nice, I love the album that one's on but didn't know that connection! Added!
Omg Farron I love this list concept!!!
May I suggest some Edgar Allan Poe stories? The Alan Parsons Project made a concept album back in the 70s called “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” with songs titled after Poe stories, and one of my favorite bands Marianas Trench themed their album “Phantoms” after Poe stories as well! I think The Raven and/or The Tell-Tale Heart would be good picks! :3
