Read about another entry on the list.Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon inspired “Whip It” by Devo
In case you weren’t spending your spare time searching the internet for the meaning behind the words of Devo’s most famous song, we’ll tell you: Devo member Jerry Casale wrote the lyrics to “Whip It” in one night, imitating Pynchon’s parodies in Gravity’s Rainbow. Said Casale: ”[Pynchon] had parodied limericks and poems of kind of all-American, obsessive, cult of personality ideas like Horatio Alger and ‘You’re #1, there’s nobody else like you’ kind of poems that were very funny and very clever. I thought, ‘I’d like to do one like Thomas Pynchon.’”
Gravity’s Rainbow is a book Chuck Klosterman would have parents read to their children.
Also see: Ten best songs based on books.
Marshal Zeringue
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