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Everything I ever needed to know I learned from my record collection…

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The GUARDIAN just published a very entertaining and informative article where their music writers picked out the musicians whose literary references illuminated them. It’s a wonderfully varied list of writers – Joe Orton, Saul Bellow, Antonio Gramsci, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oscar Wilde, Grace Paley and John Berryman,

And the very personal explanations about why the writers made their choice are well worth a read.

When I posted the article on Facebook, several friends commented with their literary discoveries from their record collections and gig going. Now I’d like to hear yours.

Once I start to think about it, what haven’t I learnt from my record collection?

Civil Rights Movement – The Neville Brothers –
December 1st, 1955
Our freedom movement came alive
And because of Sister Rosa you know
We don’t ride on the back of the bus no more.

French poetry – The Bonzos – The Odd Boy lay down by the football field
Took out a slim volume of Mallarmé

European History – Bonny Light Horseman – Oh, Napoleon Bonaparte, you’re the cause of my woe Since my bonny light horseman in the war, he did go…..

American sporting history – Simon and Garfunkel – Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, wo wo wo
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away, hey hey hey

Cinema – Lloyd Cole – She looks like Eve Marie Saint in On the Waterfront
Prefab Sprout – Masked and dressed in black / You scramble over rooftops / Carrying a bag, a bag marked swag

Russian History – Boney M – Most people looked at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

Windrush Generation – Lord Kitchener – To live in London, you are really comfortable
Because the English people are very much sociable
They take you here and they take you there
And they make you feel like a millionaire
So London, that’s the place for me

Architecture – Simon and Garfunkel – Architects may come, and architects may go
And never change your point of view
When I run dry
I’ll stop a while and think of you

American geography – Nat King Cole – Now you go through Saint Looey. And Joplin, Missouri. And Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty.

British geography – Billy Bragg – If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness
Take the A road, the okay road that’s the best
Go motorin’ on the A13

German geography – Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn
Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn
Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal
Die Sonne scheint mit Glitzerstrahl

American history – Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot- Vous avez lu l’histoire de Jesse James
Comment il vécut, comment il est mort
Ça vous a plus hein, vous en demandez encore
Eh bien, écoutez l’histoire de Bonnie and Clyde

French kissing – Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin . Je t’aime, je t’aime
Oh oui, je t’aime
Moi non plus
Oh, mon amour

And it’s not all about the past. Rodney Crowell, Billy Bragg and many others have songs about 2026. Not least…

Minneapolis 2026 – Bruce Springsteen

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes

2

Comments

    • In case anyone feels the need for a sudden crushing realisation of the passing of time, Enola Gay was released in 1980. The distance between the single and now is more than a decade more than between the single and the bombing of Hiroshima.

      • And OMD are touring as we speak, while the most recent nuclear arms reduction treaty between Washington and Moscow – whose current leaders have displayed a complete disregard for the value of human life – expired last month.
        Stevie Wonder’s Black Man contains a handy list of achievements, but is vague enough in its finer details (being happy to let you know that first x was a black/white man/woman) to make you chase up the complete stories.
        A House’s Endless Art (and variations) is strong on dates, but again might send you to Wiki to find out just who the hell is Joan Miro or whoever.
        As regards writers, in a short period of time I came into possession of Albert Camus’ The Fall and Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov. I wonder what prompted those purchases?

  3. My children actually studied We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel at school.

    Just looking at the lyric again – I always heard “trouble in the sewers” but it’s “trouble in the Suez” – of course it is.

  4. Thanks to Peter Gabriel, I can remember the date and place of Stephen Biko….

    “September 77, Port Elizabeth, weather fine.
    It was business as usual in police room 619”

  7. Thanks to the Paddington movie, Lord Kitchener’s wonderful calypso, LONDON IS THE PLACE FOR ME, has become quite widely known. Here is an excellent article about him.

    https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/london-is-the-place-for-me.html

    It reveals that the song was actually written on the boat…..

    When HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in Essex in June 1948, the young Caribbean men on board, arriving to settle in the UK, ushered a smiling “spokesman” towards Pathé’s waiting cameras. Dapperly dressed in a pale suit and fedora, the 26-year-old Aldwyn Roberts, AKA Lord Kitchener, then launched a cappella into an optimistic calypso he’d written aboard the boat.

    Interviewed by the BBC in 2015, another calypsonian, David Rudder, said “Kitch” wasn’t as naive as that old film footage makes him seem. Rudder believes he was well aware of the racist attitudes he’d be facing, but sang the song to “mamaguy, as we say in Trinidad, to caress the egos of the British people. He just said what would make English people happy because if they take to his spirit then he might have an easier passage.”

    Here’s Kitch, live on the Windrush.

    • From Kitch to Hitch…..

      Off piste for a second.. That Pathe News clip also featured Alfred and Ingrid arriving at Heathrow…

      Ingrid Bergman. Now there’s a cue for a song….

  10. Thanks to Frank Zappa, in 1966 I learnt that there was a suburb of LA called Watts and that there had been a riot there with a lot of police brutality. Not the sort of thing that got much sympathetic coverage in my parents’ Torygraph.

    • What a fascinating bloke @fitterstoke.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramahansa_Yogananda

      Yogananda was among the first Indian religious teachers to settle in the US, and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House (by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927);[7] his early acclaim led to him being dubbed “the 20th century’s first superstar guru” by the Los Angeles Times.[8] Arriving in Boston in 1920, he embarked on a successful transcontinental speaking tour before settling in Los Angeles in 1925. For the next two and a half decades, he gained local fame and expanded his influence worldwide: he created a monastic order and trained disciples, went on teaching tours, bought properties for his organization in various California locales, and initiated thousands into Kriya Yoga.[5] By 1952, SRF had over 100 centers in both India and the United States. As of 2012, they had groups in nearly every major American city.[8] His “plain living and high thinking” principles attracted people from all backgrounds among his followers.[5]

      He published his Autobiography of a Yogi in 1946 to critical and commercial acclaim. It has sold over four million copies, with Harper San Francisco listing it as one of the “100 best spiritual books of the 20th Century”.[9][8][10] Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs ordered 500 copies of the book, for each guest at his memorial to be given a copy.[11] It was also one of Elvis Presley’s favorite books, and one he gave out often. The book has been regularly reprinted and is known as “the book that changed the lives of millions”.[12][13] A documentary about his life commissioned by SRF, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, was released in 2014.[14] He remains a leading figure in Western spirituality.

  12. Thanks to Gladys Knight I discovered that there was a midnight train to Georgia from LA. Unfortunately I never found out where it stopped there or if is even true so it has never been that useful, especially since I have never been to LA.

  18. There’s one very obvious artists who has sent me scurrying to more Wikipedia pages than anyone else.

    I started sketching out a list of the references I’d followed up from his songs over the last half century or so, got half a page done and realised that my list from memory probably left out countless people, places and events that he’s mentioned along the way.

    So I went to Claude and asked him instead. Here’s his answer, which even tells us the source within his works from whence the reference comes:

    People

    Admiral Sir John “Jacky” Fisher (British naval commander)
    → “Old Admirals” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Sir Richard Grenville (English admiral, Battle of Flores, 1591)
    → “Lord Grenville” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    Warren G. Harding (29th US President; his scandal-ridden administration)
    → “Warren Harding” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Ernst Röhm (Nazi SA commander; the Night of the Long Knives, 1934)
    → “The Last Day of June 1934” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Christine Keeler (British model; the Profumo Affair)
    → referenced in Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Lord Louis Mountbatten (British military/royal figure)
    → referenced in Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Nostradamus (16th-century French seer)
    → “Nostradamus” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Heinz Guderian (German Wehrmacht general, Eastern Front WWII)
    → “Roads to Moscow” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    Henry VIII (English king; though mistakenly called “Henry Plantagenet” by Stewart)
    → “A Man for All Seasons” — Time Passages (1978)
    Thomas More (Lord Chancellor, executed by Henry VIII)
    → “A Man for All Seasons” — Time Passages (1978)
    Amy Johnson (pioneering British female aviator)
    → “Flying Sorcery” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    Jean-Paul Marat (French Revolutionary figure) / Charlotte Corday (his assassin)
    → “Charlotte Corday” — Famous Last Words (1993)
    Joseph Stalin (“Joe the Georgian”; his rise to power after Lenin)
    → “Joe the Georgian” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Vladimir Lenin (referred to as “the captain” of the ship of state)
    → “Joe the Georgian” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin (Stalin’s purge victims)
    → “Joe the Georgian” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Charles Lindbergh (first solo transatlantic flight, 1927)
    → “Lindy Comes to Town” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Calvin Coolidge (US President, referenced during Lindbergh’s welcome)
    → “Lindy Comes to Town” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Woodrow Wilson (US President; his Fourteen Points at Versailles)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    David Lloyd George (British PM at the Paris Peace Conference)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Georges Clemenceau (French PM at Paris Peace Conference)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”; Paris Peace Conference)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Winston Churchill (his “hiccup” referenced at Versailles)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain (British PMs who appeased Hitler)
    → “Three Mules” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald)
    → “Life Between the Wars” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Somerset Maugham (English writer)
    → “Life Between the Wars” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Coco Chanel (French fashion designer)
    → “Life Between the Wars” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Dolores Ibárruri (“La Pasionaria”) (Spanish Civil War Republican icon)
    → “Always the Cause” — Between the Wars (1995)
    Josephine Baker (American-born French entertainer and activist)
    → “Josephine Baker” — Last Days of the Century (1988)
    Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father)
    → “Franklin’s Table” — Down in the Cellar (2000)
    William McKinley (25th US President)
    → “Like William McKinley” — Sparks of Ancient Light (2008)
    Lord Salisbury (British statesman)
    → “Lord Salisbury” — Sparks of Ancient Light (2008)
    Hanno the Navigator (ancient Carthaginian explorer)
    → “Hanno the Navigator” — Sparks of Ancient Light (2008)
    Dwight D. Eisenhower (US President)
    → “(A Child’s View of) The Eisenhower Years” — Sparks of Ancient Light (2008)
    Harold Macmillan (his “Winds of Change” speech, 1960)
    → “On the Border” — Year of the Cat (1976)

    Events & Eras

    Operation Barbarossa / The Eastern Front, WWII
    → “Roads to Moscow” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    The Murmansk convoys / WWII Arctic supply runs
    → “Murmansk Run” — 24 Carrots (1980)
    The Night of the Long Knives (1934)
    → “The Last Day of June 1934” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    The Battle of Flores / Elizabethan naval warfare (1591)
    → “Lord Grenville” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    The French Revolution
    → “The Palace of Versailles” — Time Passages (1978)
    → “Charlotte Corday” — Famous Last Words (1993)
    WWI aviation / early aviators
    → “Flying Sorcery” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    → “Fields of France” — Last Days of the Century (1988)
    The Fall of Constantinople (1453)
    → “Constantinople” — 24 Carrots (1980)
    The Paris Peace Conference / Treaty of Versailles (1919)
    → “A League of Notions” — Between the Wars (1995)
    The Spanish Civil War (1936–39)
    → “Always the Cause” — Between the Wars (1995)
    → “On the Border” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    Prohibition / the Jazz Age / the Wall Street Crash (1920s–30s)
    → “Lindy Comes to Town”, “The Age of Rhythm”, “Life Between the Wars” — Between the Wars (1995)
    WWII deportation trains / the Holocaust
    → “Trains” — Famous Last Words (1993)
    Nazi war criminals in South America (post-WWII)
    → “Running Man” — 24 Carrots (1980)
    The Rhodesia crisis / Basque separatism
    → “On the Border” — Year of the Cat (1976)
    Soviet purges under Stalin
    → “Joe the Georgian” — Between the Wars (1995)
    → referenced in Past, Present and Future (1973)
    The Profumo Affair (1960s Britain)
    → referenced in Past, Present and Future (1973)
    The Harding administration scandals (Teapot Dome era)
    → “Warren Harding” — Past, Present and Future (1973)
    The Antarctic exploration era
    → “Antarctica” — Last Days of the Century (1988)
    WWI on the Western Front
    → “Fields of France” — Last Days of the Century (1988)

    You will have realised by now that I am talking of Al Stewart. I’m chuffed to have spotted that Claude fails to mention Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, but hey, we all know that AI is not infallible.

  24. Are there any Madrilenos in the house? If there are, they will know about La Puerta de Alcala, an arch which is a major Madrid landmark. I’ve liked this catchy song for years, but it’s only recently I found out what Ana Belen and Victor Manuel are singing about.

    https://lyricstranslate.com/en/la-puerta-de-alcal%C3%A1-citadel-gate.html

    Parisians feel the same way about this song by Jacques Dutronc. Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille. Considered by an to be one of the greatest French singles.

    Here are the lyrics with some useful notes.

    https://lyricstranslate.com/en/il-est-cinq-heures-paris-seveille-its-five-ocl.html-0

    I’d never heard this song until the day I visited our daughter’s new school where it is a big sing-along favourite. In Swedish of course.

    https://lyricstranslate.com/en/joe-dassin-les-champs-elysees-english

  25. Mine is a once-removed example, in that the Record Mirror full-page review of Bowie’s “Scary Monsters” album, referring to the first & last tracks being “It’s No Game”, made mention of the circular narrative of “King Lear”… soon afterwards I included a similar Lear comparison in an English Lit. essay at school, and got an “A” and “Excellent observation!” comment from teacher for my trouble…

  26. According to Racey* some girls will, some girls won’t. I probably could have arrived at this conclusion for myself but thanks anyway.

    *Racey the pop group not a pet name for Little Tommy Ten Names.

  27. CSN&Y: Ohio

    Billy Bragg: Woody Guthrie, The Diggers (cover of World Turned Upside Down)

    TMTCH: Spithead and Nore mutinies (The Colours), Battle of Cable Street (Ghosts of Cable Street), American actress Frances Farmer (Lobotomy Get’s ‘Em Home), Rebecca Riots (Iron Masters)

    Midnight Oil: Asbestos mines (Blue Sky Mine)

    Elvis Costello: The hanging of Derek Bentley (Let Him Dangle)

  28. I have learnt so much from Momus. Courtesy of AI, here’s a summary of the first five albums. I can already see that lots of references have been omitted.

    Momus (Nick Currie) is renowned for a “sapiosexual” songwriting style that heavily incorporates literary, historical, and philosophical references. His first five studio albums, released between 1986 and 1991, transition from Biblical and classical themes to post-modern philosophy and Japanese culture.

    1. Circus Maximus (1986)
    This debut is a “hallucinated pseudo-Biblical concept album” where each track draws from ancient Hebrew or Roman history and mythology.

    Biblical Allusions:
    King Solomon: References to the Song of Solomon in “King Solomon’s Song and Mine”.
    Sodom and Lot: “The Lesson of Sodom (According to Lot)” recounts the destruction of the city.
    Saul & John the Baptist: References to the first king of Israel and the prophet who baptized Jesus.
    Historical & Classical Allusions:
    Circus Maximus: The album title refers to the ancient Roman chariot racing stadium.
    The Rape of Lucretia: Alludes to the legendary figure whose suicide triggered the transition of Rome from a monarchy to a republic.
    St. Sebastian: The song “Lucky like St. Sebastian” portrays the saint as a masochistic figure.
    Decadent Literature: Lyrics draw from the tradition of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne, and Joris-Karl Huysmans.

    2. The Poison Boyfriend (1987)
    This record shifts toward existentialism and contemporary political allegory.

    Literary Allusions:
    Samuel Beckett: The lyric “Imagine imagination dying” in “Three Wars” is a direct reference to Beckett.
    Ezra Pound: The line “Make it new” in “Three Wars” winks at Pound’s modernist injunction.
    Jacques Brel: Momus frequently cites the Belgian chansonnier as a stylistic and thematic influence.
    Historical & Political Allusions:
    Margaret Thatcher: “Sex for the Disabled” is described as a surreal allegory for Thatcher’s Britain and her “swerve in priorities”.
    Auschwitz: Mentioned in track-adjacent prose or themes regarding the banality of evil.

    3. Tender Pervert (1988)
    A provocative album exploring sexuality through the lens of intellectual perversity and Eastern influence.

    Literary & Philosophical Allusions:
    Georges Bataille: The album is heavily influenced by Bataille’s concepts of “transgression-perversity” as a virtue.
    Yukio Mishima: The Japanese author’s obsession with beauty and death is a central influence, particularly in tracks like “Bishonen”.
    Maoism: “I Was a Maoist Intellectual” references the political ideology of Mao Zedong and its 20th-century Western academic adherents.
    Theophrastus: Momus has noted the influence of Theophrastus’s “Characters” (archetypal sketches) on his songwriting.

    4. Don’t Stop the Night (1989)
    This album often adopts the persona of the abuser to explore power dynamics and sexual corruption.
    Norman Lamont – singer
    Norman Lamont – singer
    Historical & Social Allusions:
    Sexual Corruption Archetypes: The songs explore “the sexual corruption of patients by doctors, sisters by brothers, and pupils by teachers,” mirroring historic scandals and power structures.
    Shaftesbury Avenue: The song title refers to the historic theatre district in London’s West End.
    Norman Lamont – singer
    Norman Lamont – singer

    5. Hippopotamomus (1991)
    Widely known for its “toybox techno” sound and eclectic references.

    Literary & Pop Culture Allusions:
    Krazy Kat: The track “Quark and Charm, the Robot Twins” was influenced by the schizo-comic strip by George Herriman.
    Yukio Mishima: Continued influence of the author’s aestheticism.
    Nintendo Gameboy: References the 8-bit sound of early handheld gaming as a modern cultural artifact.

  30. Admittedly it was the live version so there’s a long intro, but I was not aware of the filmography of Sabu before I was brought up to date by John Prine.

  36. The 159 runs along it.
    There’s a dolls house shop on the corner.
    You can see Balcombe Street
    There’s a number of public buildings
    And a safety barrier down the middle of the road.

    • What a gem @moseleymoles,

      I suspect I’m not the only one who hasn’t heard it before.

      That makes me think that a music fan from Japan, Brazil or Iceland, for example, would be very chuffed to walk down Baker Street, experience a sunset at Waterloo or even travel north to Sheffield and visit Coles Corner.

      I suspect I’d also want to squeeze in a visit to Mappin and Webb and meet a few buffer girls.

  40. Astronomy:
    Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
    It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side
    It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
    But out by us, it’s just three thousand light years wide
    We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
    We go ’round every two hundred million years
    And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
    In this amazing and expanding universe

    May nt be 100% factually correct, but it makes you think …

  43. We’ve had so many fine story-tellers on this thread, I really have to post a song by that glorious maverick, Warren Zevon. Backed here by David Sanborn and the stupendous NIGHT MUSIC band,

    And as a companion piece, here’s another magnificent postcard from an America in a long distant past..

    And finally to complete our nostalgic USA triptych, here are the Wassers…

  44. It’s early Saturday morning and I’m going to treat you all to two excellent extra tracks from those magnificent story-tellers, the WASSERS ….

    Wedding vows in Vegas feat FRANK SINATRA JUNIOR

    Anything can happen

  45. Learning through song begins very early.

    There’s not a child in the kingdom who doesn’t know that the miscreant formerly known as the Grand Old Duke of York, was a very foolish fellow indeed.

  47. And now two quirky gems from John Cale’s magnificent album Paris 1919.

    Not many songs mention Graham Greene, Enoch Powell and Chipping Sodbury.

    And this one will make you want to re-watch Sunset Boulevard……

  48. As regards Russin history, I’m kicking myself for not mentioning Sympathy for the Devil when I started this thread.

    Stuck around St. Petersburg
    When I saw it was a time for a change
    Killed the Tsar and his ministers
    Anastasia screamed in vain

    Then again I did quote Boney M’s Rasputin. And the Mighty M are rather famed for their astute Post-Modern, Marxist political analysis.

    Just stumbled across this POTEMKIN soundtrack gem from Morricone Youth.

    Morricone Youth is a New York City band formed in 1999 dedicated to composing, performing and recording music written for the moving image (e.g., film and television soundtrack and library production music). The band is composed of present or past members of Creedle, The Rugburns, Crash Worship, Palomar, Pretendo, Pain Teens, Yellowbirds, Fruit Bats, Mikael Jorgensen of Wilco’s Pronto, Tredici Bacci, Dispatch, Steve Poltz and Norah Jones.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morricone_Youth

    Of coure, The Petshop Boys also wrote a fine score for Eisenstein’s masterpiece…

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