LitRock from Issa's Sunday Service
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Best LitRock Songs from Issa's Sunday Service

The best LitRock Songs is a spinoff from a feature called Issa's Sunday Service at the poetry blog, Issa's Untidy Hut. The idea is a simple one: once a week, a song is selected that bridges rock and literature in some fashion. Each song is available for listening via the fine folks @ Grooveshark (or, when unavailable, via youtube) and the songs can be heard in their entirety at the links below. Suggestions are actively being sought, so send any ideas along to lilliputreview AT gmail DOT com.  If your suggestion is accepted, you'll receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free.  Please report broken links to the email above.  

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i. m. Jim Carroll
Week 1:     Summertime in England (*) by Van Morrison          (Romantic poets, plus Eliot, Joyce etc.)
Week 2:     Rejoyce by Jefferson Airplane                            (James Joyce)
Week 3:     The Way by Donovan                                        (Lao Tzu)
Week 4:     Persecution & Resurrection of Dean Moriarty        by Aztec Two-Step  (Jack Kerouac)
Week 5:     Desolation Row by Bob Dylan                              (various and multitudinous)
Week 6:     Neal, Jack, and Me by King Crimson                    (Jack Kerouac)
Week 7:     Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream                         (Homer)
Week 7.5:  Hallelujah by Popa Chubby                                 (Leonard Cohen)
Week 8:     Mercy Street (*) by Peter Gabriel                        (Anne Sexton)
Week 9:     Kaatskill Serenade by David Bromberg                 (Washington Irving)
Week 10:   I Am the Walrus (*) by The Beatles                      (Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allen Poe, King Lear)
Week 11:   Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) by the Doors            (Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill)
Week 12:   Tangled Up in Blue by Bob Dylan                          (Petrarch)
Week 13:   Ophelia by The Band                                          (Hamlet, Ophelia)
Week 14:   You Can't Judge A Book ... by Cactus                   (Literature)
Week 15:   Lorca's Novena by the Pogues                              (Federico Garcia Lorca)
Week 16:   Babe, I'm on Fire - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds        (Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca)
Week 17:   San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)              by Fever Tree (Thomas Hardy)
Week 18    Wild Children (*) by Van Morrison                          (Tennessee Williams)
Week 19:   Stuck Between Stations by The Hold Steady            (John Berryman, Jack Kerouac, "Sal Paradise")
Week 20:   Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits                           (William Shakespeare, West Side Story)
Week 21    It's Too Late by the Jim Carroll Band                      (Raymond Chandler)
Week 22    There She Goes, My Beautiful World by Nick Cave    (John Wilmot, Philip Larkin, Dylan Thomas et al)
Week 23    Paperback Writer (*) by The Beatles                      (Edward Lear, Frere Jacques)
Week 24    Small Flowers Crack Concrete by Sonic Youth          (d.a.levy)
Week 25    Wreck of the Hesperus by Procol Harum                 (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Week 26    Home I'll Never Be by Tom Waits                           (Jack Kerouac)
Week 27    White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane                        (Lewis Carroll)
Week 28    Ramble On by Led Zeppelin                                   (J. R. R. Tolkin)
Week 29    She Blinded Me with Science by Thomas Dolby          (Poetry)
Week 30    Adam Raised a Cain by Bruce Springsteen                (Genesis Book 4, John Steinbeck)
Week 31    Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants        (The Argonautica)
Week 32    What Keeps Mankind Alive by Tom Waits                 (Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill)
Week 33    The Stolen Child by The Waterboys                         (W. B. Yeats)
Week 34    Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones            (Mikhail Bulgakov, Charles Baudelaire, Bible)
Week 35    Sartori in Tangier by King Crimson                         (The Beats, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac etc.)
Week 36    Spell (Footnote to Howl) by Patti Smith                   (Howl, Allen Ginsberg, Beats, Footnote to Howl)
Week 37    1984 by David Bowie                                            (George Orwell)
Week 38    April by Deep Purple                                             (T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land)
Week 39    Pride of Man by Quicksilver Messenger Service          (The Bible)
Week 40    Not So Sweet Lorraine by Country Joe & the Fish      (I Ching)
Week 41    Undercover of the Night by the Rolling Stones           (William Burroughs "Cities of the Red Night")
Week 42    Poor Little Rich Boy by Regina Spektor                     (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway)
Week 43    Highway 61 Revisited by Johnny Winter                    (Bob Dylan cover, The Bible, Bertolt Brecht)
Week 44    Sweet Jane by Lou Reed                                        (Poetry)
Week 45    Conquistador by Procol Harum                                (Percy B. Shelley "Ozymandis")
Week 46    Bullet the Blue Sky by U2                                       (Bible: Genesis 32)
Week 47    Xanadu by Rush                                                   (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan)
Week 48    Haiku by Slapp Happy                                           (Haiku, Issa, Han Shan)
Week 49    Shakespeare's Sister by The Smiths                          (William Shakespeare)
Week 50    Samson & Delilah - Rev. Gary Davis                         (Bible)
Week 51    Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny - Frank Zappa  (Franz Kafka)
Week 52    Cassidy - Grateful Dead                                         (Neal Cassady)
Week 53    Ghetto Defendent - The Clash w/Allen Ginsberg         (Allen Ginsberg, Beat Literature)
Week 54    Sharkey's Night by Laurie Anderson                          (William Burroughs)
Week 55    A Rose for Emily by The Zombies                             (William Faulkner)
Week 56    A Fire Down Below - Nick Cave                                (Book of Malachi)
Week 57    The Weight - The Band                                          (William Faulkner, Bible)
Week 58    My Blakean Year - Patti Smith                                 (William Blake)
Week 59    Bukowski - Modest Mouse                                       (Bukowski)
Week 60    Marat/Sade - Judy Collins                                       (Peter Weiss, Marquis de Sade)
Week 61    End of the Night - The Doors                                  (Louis Ferdinand Céline)
Week 62    John the Revelator - Gov't Mule                               (The Bible, Book of Revelations)
Week 63    A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum                     (Canterbury Tales "The Miller's Tale")
Week 64    Who Are You - Tom Waits                                      (Hamlet)
Week 65    Literary Kings - Late July                                       (Literature)
Week 66    Jungleland - Bruce Springsteen & the E St. Band         (Poetry, Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Week 67    Story of Isaac - Leonard Cohen                                (Bible - Genesis)
Week 68    Who Wrote Holden Caulfield - Green Day                   (J. D. Salinger)
Week 69    A Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed                          (Nelson Algren)
Week 70    Tobacco Road - Blues Magoos                                  (title of Erskine Caldwell novel)
Week 71    Goodbye Newport Blues by Muddy Waters Band           (Langston Hughes)
Week 72    Golden Hair by Syd Barrett                                      (James Joyce, Chamber Music)
Week 73    Under the Greenwood Tree - Donovan                       (William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy)
Week 74    Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police                      (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
Week 75    Hey, Jack Kerouac - 10,000 Maniacs                          (Jack Kerouac)
Week 76    When I Went Out One Morning by Bob Dylan                (Tom Paine)
Week 77    Shine on Brighty - Procol Harum                               (Bible - 3 wise men)
Week 78    Blind by Deep Purple                                               (Poetry, Daedalus & Icarus)
Week 79    Wordy Rappinghood by Tom Tom Club                       ( Little Red Riding Hood, William Wordsworth)
Week 80    Utterly Simple by Traffic                                         (Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)
Week 81    Althea by the Grateful Dead                                     (William Shakespeare, Richard Lovelace)
Week 82    Rabbit Run by Bert Jansch                                        (Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows)
Week 83    Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds                                   (Book of Ecclesiastes, The Bible)
Week 84    Dandy of the Underworld by T. Rex                            (Orpheus, Wizard of Oz)
Week 85    A Certain Romance by Arctic Monkeys                         (Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes)
Week 86    Everyday I Write the Books by Elvis Costello                  (Literature)
Week 87    Dover Beach by The Bangles                                       (Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot)
Week 88    Animal in Man by Dead Prez                                       (George Orwell, Animal Farm)
Week 89    There, There by Radiohead                                       (The Odyssey, Homer)
Week 90    Take This Waltz by Leonard Cohen                             (Frederico Garcia Lorca)
Week 91    40 by U2                                                                (Psalm 40, the Bible)
Week 92    Ah, Sunflower Weary of Time by The Fugs                   (William Blake)
Week 93    Stephanie Knows by Love                                          (Poetry)
Week 94    Jason and the Argonauts by XTC                                 (Argonautica, Apollonius, H. G. Wells)
Week 95    Yeats's Grave by The Cranberries                                (W. B. Yeats, "No Second Troy")
Week 96    The Glass Bead Game by The Thievery Corporation)       (Hermann Hesse)
Week 97    Kashmir by Led Zeppelin                                            (Lost Horizon by James Hilton)
Week 98    Bug Dust Powder by Bomb The Bass                             (William Burroughs + too numerous to note)
Week 99    You're Gonna Make We Lonesome ... by Bob Dylan         (Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud)
Week 100  Tomorrow by Patti Smith                                           ( Musical: Annie)
Week 101  Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso) by Sonic Youth         (Poem: "Leaky Lifeboat Boys")
Week 102  Get Down Moses by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros        (Moses, Bible, William Faulkner)
Week 103  Jools and Jim by Pete Townshend                                 (Jesus Christ, Krishna)
Week 104  Pilgrim's Progress by Procol Harum                                (John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress)
Week 105  Enivrez-vous by Stereo Lab                                          (Charles Baudelaire)
Week 106  I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys  (William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet)
Week 107  Me and Jerome by Sarah Slean                                     (J. D. Salinger)
Week 108  Neal Cassady by Weather Underground                          (Beats, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg)
Week 109  Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend                            (Grammar, English drama)
Week 110  Somewhere by Tom Waits                                           (West Side Story, Romeo and Juliet)
Week 111  Dream Gérrad by Traffic                                             (Gérard de Nerval)
Week 112  The Lobster Quadrille by Franz Ferdinand                       (Lewis Carroll, the Alice Books)
Week 113  Walt Whitman's Niece by Billy Bragg                               (Walt Whitman)
Week 114  Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie by Belle & Sebastian             (Jack Kerouac, J. D. Salinger, Judy Blume) Week 115  Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult                       (William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet)
Week 116  He's Gone by the Grateful Dead                                     (Tennessee Williams)
Week 117  Dance of the Hopping Mad by The Raincoats                    (William Blake)
Week 118  I Zimbra by The Talking Heads                                      (Hugo Ball)
Week 119  Pretty Good Year by Tori Amos                                      (T. S. Eliot - Prufrock)
Week 120  Cooksferry Queen by Richard Thompson                         (Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland)
Week 121  Sea Fever by Kris Delmhorst                                         (John Masefield)
Week 122  Song of Wandering Aengus by Donovan                           (W. B. Yeats)
Week 123  1983 (A Merman I Shall Be) by Jimi Hendrix                    (George Orwell - 1984)
Week 124  Dirty Blvd. by Lou Reed                                               (Emma Lazarus - The New Colossus)
Week 125  Cool n' Out by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros                 (Bible: Genesis)
Week 126  Shangri-la by The Kinks                                               (James Hilton's  Lost Horizon)
Week 127  Buddha of Suburbia by David Bowie                                (Hanif Kureishi novel)
Week 128  Walking the Dog - Rufus Thomas                                   (Nursery rhyme, Mary, Mary Quite Con...)
Week 129  Gimme Some Truth by John Lennon                               (Mother Hubbard, English nursery rhyme)
Week 130  Violets of Dawn by Eric Andersen                                   (Grimm's Fairy Tales)
Week 131  Politics by Ehson Rad & D. Kent Watson                          (Politics by W. B. Yeats)
Week 132  Goodbye Hello by Tim Buckley                                       (Lao Tzu)
Week 133  Empty Glass by Pete Townshend                                    (Bible, Somerset Maugham, Upanishads ...)
Week 134  Power and Glory by Lou Reed                                        (W. B. Yeats, Graham Greene)
Week 135  I'm Shakin' by Jack White                                             (Bible: Samson and Delilah)
Week 136  Long Hard Book by Stephen Malkmus & the Jinks             (Rabbit Run - John Updike)
Week 137  The Afterlife - Paul Simon                                             (Bible, Buddhist literature)
Week 138  Roll on John - Bob Dylan                                               (William Blake)
Week 139  Caravan by Utopia                                                      (Bible: Jesus, Moses)
Week 140  Supernaturally by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds                   (W. H. Auden, Donal Óg)
Week 141  China Cat Sunflower - The Grateful Dead                        (Edith Sitwell, Lewis Carroll)
Week 142  The Dangling Conversation - Simon & Garfunkel               (Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson)
Week 143  The Auld Triangle - The Pogues                                      (Brendan Behan, Dominic Behan)
Week 144  Alexandera Leaving - Leonard Cohen                              (C. P. Cavafy, Leonard Cohen)
Week 145  Tea in the Sahara - The Police                                       (Jane Bowles, Paul Bowles)
Week 146  Danielle Steel by the Lucksmiths                                    (Danielle Steel)
Week 147  Sunny South Kensington - Donovan                                 (Allen Ginsberg)
Week 148  Good Shepherd - Jefferson Airplane                               (Bible)
Week 149  Star of Bethlehem - Neil Young                                      (New Testament)
Week 150  Gloria in Excelsis Deo - Patti Smith                                 (Liturgical Mass, Bible)
Week 151  Quite Rightly So - Procol Harum                                     (Poetic form: ode)
Week 152  Ballad of Me, You, & Pooneil - Jefferson Airplane              (Winnie-the-Pooh)
Week 153  House at Pooneil Corners - Jefferson Airplane                   (Winnie-the-Pooh)
Week 154  The One Inch Rock by T-Rex                                          (Poetry)
Week 155  The Minotaur's Song by the Incredible String Band              (Ovid's Metamorphoses)
Week 156  Piktor's Metamorphosis by David Sancious & Tone               (Hermann Hesse)
Week 157  Gimme Some Truth by John Lennon                                 (Old Mother Hubbard)
Week 158  Garden of Love by the Martha Redbone Project                 (William Blake)
Week 159  Apeman by The Kinks                                                    (Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs)
Week 160  Albatross by Fleetwood Mac                                            (Samuel Coleridge, Ancient Mariner)
Week 161  1959 by Patti Smith                                                      (Kerouac, Desolation Angels, Dickens)
Week 162  Joan of Arc by Leonard Cohen                                        (Joan of Arc, Shaw, Brecht etc.)
Week 163  The Book of Love by The Monotones                                (Literature, books)
Week 164  When You Awake by The Band                                         (Moses, The Bible)
Week 165  Science Fiction by The Divinyls                                        (Science Fiction, genre)
Week 166  Frank O'Hara Hit by Chelsea Light Moving                         (Frank O'Hara)
Week 167  There is a Mountain by Donovan                                      (Buddhist proverb, Qingyuan Weixin)
Week 168  Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joni Mitchell                    (W. B. Yeats)
Week 169  I'd Rather Be High by David Bowie                                   (Vladimir Nabokov)
Week 170  Burroughs by Chelsea Light Moving                                   (William Burroughs
Week 171  Ship of Fools by The Doors                                              (Katherine Anne Porter, Allegory)
Week 172  Mega Bottle Ride by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros           (Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Week 173  Welcome to the Monkey House by The Dandy Warhols          (Kurt Vonnegut)
Week 174  Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsberg) by Sonic Youth             (haiku)
Week 175  (It's Hard to Be) A Saint in the City by B. Springsteen           (Prince & the Pauper, Casanova)
Week 176  Ground Beneath Her Feet by U2                                       (Salman Rushdie, novel)
Week 177  Walking on Hell's Roof by the Waco Brothers                        (Kobayashi Issa, haiku) 
Week 178  The Tin Man by America                                                  (Wizard of Oz)
Week 179  Burn It Down by Dexy's Midnight Runners                            (Wilde, Behan, O'Casey & more)  
Week 180  Richard Cory by Simon & Garfunkel                                   (Edward Arlington Robinson)
Week 181  Dust in the Wind by Kansas                                              (Native American Poetry, Bible)      

                                                           In memory: 9 Songs by Lou Reed                

Week 182  Cloudy by Simon & Garfunkel                                            (Leo Tolstoy, James Barrie)
Week 183  Empty Pages by Traffic                                                   (Writing)
Week 184  Sir Patrick Spens by Fairport Convention                             (Old English ballad, poem)
Week 185  Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley                                       (Odyssey, Mythology)
Week 186  Madam Medusa by UB40                                                   (Ovid, Mythology)
Week 187  For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her by Simon & Garfunkel     (Emily Dickinson)
Week 188  Nickel Street by Anonymous                                              (Drama)




If you dig poetry, visit Issa's Untidy Hut, the blog of the print magazine Lilliput Review. 
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Last Update: 5/18/14

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