The interplay between music and books is a natural one. After all, they’re just different branches on the big literature tree. As Jason Isbell said in an interview with The Bitter Southerner last October, writing music is “just like any writing at all, except, eventually, you’re going to have to make it fit into the boxes that it needs to fit in for you to be able to sing it. That’s really the only difference.”

Because March is National Reading Month, this seems an ideal time to shine a light on the influence that books have on music. There are countless songs with lyrics that make literary references — to stories, to characters or settings of those stories, to book titles, or to the authors themselves.

So for today’s 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear that contain literary references?  

Respond with your song ideas in the comments below.

Have an idea for a Coffee Break topic? Submit your idea for a future theme and browse past Coffee Breaks in our archive.

Songs Played
Led Zeppelin – Ramble On
The Sundays – Here's Where the Story Ends
Talking Heads – The Book I Read
Hüsker Dü – Books About UFOs
The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love
Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
Tina Fabrique – Reading Rainbow Theme Song
Stars – My Favourite Book
The Clientele – Bookshop Casanova (bonus)