50 Best Rock Songs About Books
Rock Tracks That Capture the World of Books
There’s something strange about songs that circle around books. Not every one of them literally talks about paper and ink, but they carry that same weight of stories stacked on a shelf, waiting to be cracked open. Some of these tracks feel like flipping through a dog-eared paperback on a rainy day, while others hit more like the smell of a library mixed with stale coffee and old floorboards. It’s a headspace thing. The melodies wrap around the feeling of stepping into another world, whether that’s through a novel or through a riff loud enough to shake the walls.
It’s messy in a different way from the usual pop, rock, country, and R&B songs you’d toss into a playlist. Here, the characters in the lyrics sometimes read like people you’ve met only in passing, sketched out like half-written chapters. A few of these songs might not even mention books outright, but they still hum with that vibe of losing yourself in a story you can’t put down. There’s something in the guitar work, in the way the vocals lean heavy or light, that makes it feel like the pages are turning even when you’re standing still.
Some tracks feel like the loud slam of a hardcover shutting, while others drift quietly like a line of poetry you can’t shake. They’re not clean, and they don’t tie things up neatly, which is exactly why they stick. This list gathers that energy, weaving together tracks that live somewhere between the written word and the wail of an amp. Here are the best rock songs connected to books that deserve a spot on your playlist.
Top 10 Books and Reading Rock Songs
1. 'Ramble On' by Led Zeppelin
2. 'Everyday I Write The Book' by Elvis Costello
3. 'Wrapped Up in Books' by Belle & Sebastian
4. 'Paperback Writer' by The Beatles
5. 'I Am a Rock' by Simon & Garfunkel
6. 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush
7. '1984' by David Bowie
8. 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane
9. 'Sympathy For The Devil' by The Rolling Stones
10. 'The Battle of Evermore' by Led Zeppelin
Literary Themed Rock Songs #11 to 20
11. 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' by Metallica
12. 'Pet Sematary' by The Ramones
13. 'The Trooper' by Iron Maiden
14. 'Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?' by Green Day
15. 'Scentless Apprentice' by Nirvana
16. 'The Call of Ktulu' by Metallica
17. 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' by The Police
18. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by The Beatles
19. 'Red Right Hand' by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
20. 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' by Bruce Springsteen
Rock Music Inspired by Literature #21 to 30
21. 'Among the Living' by Anthrax
22. 'Brave New World' by Iron Maiden
23. 'The Book of Love' by The Magnetic Fields
24. 'Everyday Is Like Sunday' by Morrissey
25. 'The Thin White Duke' by David Bowie
26. 'I'd Do Anything for Love' by Meat Loaf
27. 'To Tame a Land' by Iron Maiden
28. 'A Design for Life' by Manic Street Preachers
29. 'Librarian' by My Morning Jacket
30. 'The Gnome' by Pink Floyd
Rock Songs Influenced by Writing and Reading #31 to 40
31. 'Books are Burning' by XTC
32. 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' by Sting
33. 'I Read You Like an Open Book' by Tages
34. 'The Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield
35. 'God of Thunder' by KISS
36. 'Johnny Got His Gun' by Metallica
37. 'Charlotte Sometimes' by The Cure
38. 'Read It in Books' by Echo & the Bunnymen
39. 'The Wizard' by Black Sabbath
40. 'Soma' by The Strokes
Rock Songs About Literature #41 to 50
41. 'Jacob Marley's Chain' by Aimee Mann
42. 'Disturbance at the Heron House' by R.E.M.
43. 'The Book Lovers' by The Divine Comedy
44. 'You Could Write a Book' by Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
45. 'The Book I Read' by Talkin' Heads
46. 'Books Written for Girls' by Camera Obscura
47. 'Knowledge' by Operation Ivy
48. 'Golden Slumbers' by The Beatles
49. 'The Book of Days' by Enya
50. 'I'm Reading A Book' by Julian Smith
© 2025 Carson McQueen
