Five Albums Inspired by Literature

From George Orwell to Virginia Woolf, via Anne Frank’s diary and the Bible, we’ve rounded up five brilliant albums that owe much of their creation to the written word.

Julia Holter — Aviary (2018)

It’s rare that an album longer than an hour and a half grabs my attention for the whole duration. Take a bow, Julia Holter. Aviary, Holter’s fifth studio album, draws its influence from the concept of memory, with the singer-songwriter using two books as inspiration for the album. Published in 2009, Master of the Eclipse is a collection of short stories by Lebanese writer Etel Adnan, which mediates on memory through history, war and poetry. Holter also cited Mary Carruther’s academic work The Book of Memory as an influence.

The music itself throws you into a world of dream-like textures, fragmented vocal deliveries and glorious avant-garde sounds combined with splashes of colour that will transport you as much as they will transfix.

Standout tracks: ‘I Shall Love 2’, ‘Chaitius’, ‘Underneath the Moon’

Pixies — Doolittle (1989)

The bible counts as literature, right? Because there are biblical (and mythical) references galore in this absolute gem of an album, which has been cited by many musicians and publications as being one of the most influential rock works of all time.

Songs like ‘Gouge Away’ and ‘Dead’ borrow stories from the Good Book, with graphic (but great) lyrics of gouged out eyes and horny characters from the Old Testament. There are plenty of nods to surrealism, too, with the album-opener ‘Debaser’ directly referencing the 1929 silent film Un Chien Andalou, co-written by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.

Standout tracks: ‘Gouge Away’, ‘Debaser’, ‘Hey’

Max Richter — Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works (2017)

Written in 2017 for a narrative dance piece based on three Virgina Woolf novels (Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves), Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works combines spoken word excerpts from the author’s books with composer Max Richter’s eminently recognisable neo-classical sound signature.

What’s great about this album is that you really don’t have to be familiar with the novels to enjoy the music, with each story inhabiting vastly different soundworlds to keep you entertained. Smooth, earthy string and piano textures dominate the music inspired by Mrs Dalloway; electronic-infused acoustic sounds creep into the rich, vibrant and cinematic soundworld of Orlando; and, as you can probably guess, sounds of the ocean provide the foundation for delicate string textures to soothe the soul in The Waves.

If you’ve never listened to neo-classical music before, this album is a great place to start.

Standout tracks: ‘IV. Mrs Dalloway: Meeting Again’, ‘VIII. Orlando: Morphology’, ‘XVI. The Waves: Tuesday’

Pink Floyd — Animals (1979)

If you like George Orwell’s novel 1984 then you’re in for a treat, because all of the characters in this concept album by prog rock stalwarts Pink Floyd are based on various animals from the story.

You’ll meet pigs, dogs and sheep over the course of the album’s five songs, all of which are lyrically underpinned by the strong sense of socio-political unrest in Britain in the late 1970s. Even the album art reflects this, with a plump pig (another nod to the novel) flying over London’s Battersea Power Station. Floyd really knew how to ham things up back in the day, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Standout tracks: ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’, ‘Sheep’

Neutral Milk Hotel — In the Aeroplane Over The Sea (1998)

On the face of it, this sounds like a relatively pleasant indie rock album from the 90s. But if you look behind the lyrics, you’ll actually find that many were written about teenage diarist Anne Frank.

Vocalist and guitarist Jeff Mangum was deeply affected by her writing, spending three days crying and dreaming about saving Frank after finishing the diary. The most direct references to Anne are found in ‘Oh Comely’, with lyrics describing her burial with her family. At times the album is heartfelt, in others it’s a bit bleak. All in all, it makes for an interesting and seriously unique listen.

Standout tracks: ‘Oh Comely’, ‘Holland, 1945’, ‘King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3’