Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The 10 best songs based on books

At The Observer, Mark O'Connell came up with ten of the best songs based on books.

One entry on the list:
Bruce Springsteen

The Ghost of Tom Joad

The Ghost of Tom Joad is the Boss at the top of his game. Tom Joad – the hero of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath – is not the only ghostly presence here. Woody Guthrie’s The Ballad of Tom Joad, which draws from the same literary source, is in attendance, and Bob Dylan’s influence is apparent. The injustices of the present – homelessness and police brutality – haunt the song as much as the ghosts of the past. Speaking of injustice, the song has been covered by Rage Against the Machine, but the less said about that the better
Read about another entry on the list.

The Grapes of Wrath also appears on John Kerry's list of five books on progressivism, Stephen King's five best list of books on globalization, John Mullan's list of ten of the best pieces of fruit in literature, and Honor Blackman's six best books list. It is one of Frederic Raphael's top ten talkative novels.

--Marshal Zeringue