Grasping for the Wind

The Lyrical Music of SF&F

I like to listen to rock and roll radio stations when I work. All the writing I do can get rather dull, especially when I'm just working on formatting the documents.

As I listened, I got to thinking about the music of speculative fiction. Not the music that could be defined as classical or soundtrack, (Everyone who hears "Darth Vader's Theme" knows it is about science fiction and fantasy), but the music of the mainstream that may not be speculative in intent, but in some way includes such elements.

For instance, the Counting Crows cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" (originally performed by Joni Mitchell) is about environmentalism, but includes in its lyrics a reference to an apocalyptic future.

They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot...

Everytime I hear that song on the radio, I think of John Joseph Adams' Wastelands anthology and apocalyptic fiction. (as well as the movie Two Weeks Notice, but we won't talk about that ;-)

Or in the Fantasy category, you have these lyrics from Dido's "Hunter":

If you were a king up there on your throne
would you be wise enough to let me go
for this queen you think you own
Wants to be a hunter again
wants to see the world alone again
to take a chance on life again
so let me go

Such lyrics make me think of novels by people like Karen Britain, Michelle West, Mercedes Lackey, and others with strong female characters.

Obviously, these songs were written to talk about other things. The former is about environmentalism and the second about leaving a lover, but in the music is the element of the fantastic.

I am looking for songs that have lyrics, rather than music that simply gives us emotional impressions like soundtracks do. There is a local radio station here in ATL that during lunch will broadcast themed music. The themes come from listeners. I thought that if I could compile a neat enough list, maybe I could get them to do a lunch session on science fiction and fantasy music. The station is a rock and roll, pop, rock classics, 80's music station called DaveFM. You would be able to listen via the Internet if you aren't local, so worldwide ideas or suggestions are welcome.

These were the two songs that come most readily to mind for me, can you think of others that might fall into this category?

Posted by John on March 12, 2008 11:56 AM | Posted to Fantasy/Scifi News
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