Bands Who Got Their Names From Literary Works

The hosts of Sound Opinions on NPR recently dedicated an episode to literature's influence on music, playing segments of songs that mention famous writers. Hosts Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis each took turn about pointing out favorite songs that mentioned a literary figure, examples that spanned the various genre of rock.

"Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs was an obvious choice, given it is titled after the author of the classic On The Road. "Cemetery Gates" by the Smiths was also selected, as Morrissey mentions his favorite writer Oscar Wilde. The title track from the John Cale album Paris 1919 was also cited, based on its allusion to the British novelist Graham Greene.

Missing from the lineup were several classics, most notably Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" in which he refers to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also deserving recognition was Simon and Garfunkel's "The Dangling Conversation", which name drops both Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.

Perhaps on a future episode, the hosts of Sound Opinions might discuss favorite bands that took their names from literary works. The first band to do so, as far as I am aware, was Ian Hunter and the group he named after a Sixties novel by Willard Manus called Mott The Hoople.

Here are nine other bands who have since that time selected their names from literature.

Steely Dan
William Burroughs's novel The Naked Lunch is the source of the unusual name of the band founded by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

As I Lay Dying
Most enthusiasts of American literature would recognize this rock band's name, which is exactly the same as the most famous novel of William Faulkner.

Artful Dodger
Charles Dickens was the source for this early Eighties group's name, which spawns from a charceqtr in the classic novel Oliver Twist.

Uriah Heep
"Easy Livin'" was their biggest hit, but it has not endured nearly as well as the notorious corrupter of children in Oliver Twist.

Airborne Toxic Event
Mike Jollett, a published novelist in his own right, selected his band's name from the book White Noise by Dan Dilillo.

Modest Mouse
In this rare case a rodent came out of a misspelled canine creature, as in writer Virginia Woolf and her story "The Mark on the Wall."

Supertramp
William Henry Davis wrote The Autobiography of a Super Tramp, the latter compound noun being what Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson chose to call their band.

Toto
Africa may have taken the band far up the charts, but the dog in the book they were named after was on a yellow brick road looking for a place called Oz.

Boo Radleys
Scout the narrator was terrified of the mysterious neighbor Boo Radley, who turned out to be a hero in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

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