Song List

We English majors may not have a great deal to recommend us at the job fair outside of an ability to identify a good comma splice, but we do have our own place in the music world. Somebody has to spell-check all those lyrics, after all, and the most astute rockers have paid proper tribute:

“Paperback Writer” by The Beatles
A delightful satire. Yep, everybody wants to write a book. Unfortunately, some people actually do.

“Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield
Before it was overexposed into oblivion by every commercial entity from shampoo commercials to TV show intros, “Unwritten” offers “Today is where your book begins/The rest is still unwritten” as a chisel against writer’s block and every frantic college student who still has three pages to go on the essay due in an hour and a half.

“The Ghost of Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen
Inspired by the movie version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, one of American literature’s most depressing novels, the novel and the titular song are hardly more cheerful. Cardboard boxes as houses always make for a good slow-dance song.

“Word Up” by Cameo
Rapping isn’t exactly diagramming sentences, but the connection of the language lives between the two. “Come on, lyrics like and a red codpiece? If there’s music we can use it, we need to dance/We don’t have that time for psychological romance.” What’s not to love here?

“Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits
Somewhat easier to listen to than a high school drama club fumbling its way through Shakespearian language, Dire Straits are one of many artists to modernize the story. “You and me babe, how bout it?”

What are your favorite songs about books?

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