Literary Lyrics

[sodascouts]

I was just listening to the song "I Will Not Go Quietly" and it struck me that the lyric "I ain't no tiger, ain't no little lamb" might have been a reference to William Blake's famous companion poems "The Tyger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyger#mediaviewer/File:The_Tyger_BM_a_1794.jpg)" and "The Lamb (http://l-adam-mekler.com/BlakeLamb.jpg)" in Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence, respectively. It's especially appropriate since it's off of Don's End of the Innocence album and the poems are a direct contrast between the innocence of the "little lamb" and the fierceness of the "tiger, tiger burning bright" - both created by the same God. Pretty freaking cool, if I'm right - and judging from Don's literary leanings, I think the odds are good that I am.

Inspired by this, I thought it would be fun to start a thread about literary references in Eagles or solo songs. Any favorites?

[Freypower]

Soda, you know my favourite is 'let's kill all the lawyers' from Get Over It which originates from Henry VI Part 2:
All:
God save your majesty!

Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.

Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78 (http://www.enotes.com/henryvi-ii-text/act-iv-scene-2#killlawyers)


While I am not a great fan of the line 'someone show me how to tell the dancer from the dance' in Saturday Night, I am a fan of the man who wrote the original, W.B. Yeats:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Stanza 8 of Among School Children (The Tower, 1928 )

I don't know if the title of Glenn's song Brave New World is taken from Shakespeare's The Tempest or Aldous Huxley's book. It's a common phrase.

MIRANDA       Oh, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in ’t!

Act 5 Scene 1

I should also say that in 1977 I found it astounding that a pop song would use the phrase 'great expectations' (Charles Dickens) & that was one aspect which eventually led to the song becoming my favourite Eagles song.

[maryc2130]

I believe the line "beating ploughshares into swords" is a play on a biblical reference but I couldn't quote chapter and verse.

[Freypower]

I believe the line "beating ploughshares into swords" is a play on a biblical reference but I couldn't quote chapter and verse.

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Isiaah 2 (King James Version)

Another of my favourites is 'so hungry & so lean' from James Dean which always reminds me of Glenn himself and is originally from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

CAESAR (aside to ANTONY) Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

Act 2 Scene 1

Then there is 'what a tangled web we weave' from Saturday Night which many think is Shakespeare but which is actually Sir Walter Scott:

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!Sir Walter Scott (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Sir_Walter_Scott/), Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

And I know that The Boys Of Summer is the title of a book about baseball. For some reason I have always thought the image doesn't work in the song as well as it should. But looking at Wikipedia it appears that the line comes from Dylan Thomas!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_of_Summer_%28book%29

http://www.internal.org/Dylan_Thomas/I_See_the_Boys_of_Summer

[thelastresort]

There's a Biblical reference in On the Border - 'I'm tryin' to change this water to wine'. There's also a direct reference to Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd etc) in Long Road Out of Eden.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

All of No More Walks In The Woods falls into this category.

[UndertheWire]

Maybe someone can do the work for me on this one.

In a 1979 interview, Jim Ladd says that "Prisoners of our own devise" was lifted from The Doors' "Unhappy Girl". Don objects and says it comes from Lord Byron and it came to him via Eve Babitz. My googling has yet to yield a Byron version.

Next up, does anyone know the origins of "Too fast to live, too young to die". Apart from the Eagles' "James Dean" lyric, it is associated with Malcom McClaren and the British Punk movement (shop name from 1973, title of biography of Sid Vicious).

As for biblical references, an obvious one is "His jacuzzi runneth over."

Psalms 23:5 (King James Version (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/bible-phrases-sayings.html)):

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

[maryc2130]

This is a great discussion. "Learn to Be still" also has a biblical reference:

"When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd."

Mark 6:30-34

Apparently, it's often used as a metaphor for war or spiritual combat.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

Just hearing Learn to Be Still reminds me of my favorite Biblical passage, Psalm 46:10. "Be still and know that I am God." It's how I try to live my life as a Christian. Be Still. To me, it has always meant a lot of things, and I find it very relevant to my life at the moment as I go through a transition on the job front, and from that, even where I'm to live. Every time I worry about the future, or wonder what I should be doing, the message is Be Still. When I calm myself down and put it in God's hands, amazing things happen.

To me, that's what Learn To Be Still is about. Following the voices in your head, looking for greener pastures, instead of waiting on what's right means you'll never be happy. The second verse is easy, when you don't calm down and wait for the Shepherd to lead you and you follow any old voice, you follow the wrong gods home and again, you'll never be happy.

Wandering around the desert and following the wrong god could be a reference to the Israelites worshiping the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain getting the ten commandments.

There is no one Biblical passage that I can remember that sums it all up and makes this 'literary'. On the other hand, one of the best verses a Christian should live, IMO, is to remember or to learn to Be Still.

[maryc2130]

VA, it reminds me a little of the line in For My Wedding:

"To want what I have and take what I'm given with grace..."

I'm not overly religious but that line has always touched me, and I do TRY to live like that. (Emphasis on try, it's not easy! :))

[sodascouts]

This is a great discussion. "Learn to Be still" also has a biblical reference:

"When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd."

Mark 6:30-34

Apparently, it's often used as a metaphor for war or spiritual combat.

I would say it's a metaphor for people who are lost without a leader. This is why Jesus pities them; they're filled with confusion and longing for guidance.

[Freypower]

I appreciate others coming up with Biblical references because I would not have thought of them. It didn't occur to me that the lline about the 23rd Psalm was in fact a literary reference (and yes, I do know it's The Lord Is My Shepherd).

I have one which can't be verified and it's more Shakespeare, I'm afraid. In Wasted Time:

You didn't love the boy too much
No no, you just loved the boy too well

is an echo of Othello's

Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well.

Act 5 Scene 2.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

It sounds like a reference to me!

I have to wonder how many of these were intentional, or just buried in their subconsciousness?

[Glennsallnighter]

Could be either or VA,

[Freypower]

In the case of Get Over It the reference is quite explicit because of the line 'old Billy was right'.

[sodascouts]

My guess is that the vast majority of the references are deliberate, although sometimes a phrase becomes so commonplace that you use it without realizing where exactly it originates.

I see we're lumping Biblical references with literary ones. Along those lines, there is a "reference" - or more accurately, a line pretty much lifted from a Christian hymn in "The Sad Cafe":

"We would meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by-and-by" is a rearrangement of the line "In the sweet by-and-by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore" from the popular old hymn "The Sweet By-and-By." Luckily, the estate of lyricist S. Fillmore Bennett didn't sue. ;)

[VAisForEagleLovers]

Soda, in my opinion, the Bible is greatest and most important piece of literature ever written! Oh, and it's one of the few I can remember quotes from.

[Freypower]

I agree that many people regard the Bible as literature.

There is a quotation from Joe's Made Your Mind Up that I like. It's not literature, it's another pop song. He says 'feeling two foot small' which comes from the Beatles You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.

And that leads me to 'those captains of industry/and their tools on the hill' from Goodbye To A River which is surely a nod to another Beatles classic, The Fool On The Hill.

While I'm at it, Pretty Maids All In A Row is from a nursery rhyme, Mary Mary Quite Contrary.

I have a huge book about Bob Dylan called Song & Dance Man in which an entire chapter is devoted to Dylan's nursery rhyme references, so why not mention it here?

[Houston Debutante]

Since we're including lyrics from other songs, in Annabel, Don quotes the song Dixie when he uses the phrase 'in the land of cotton.'

[Freypower]

Soda, if you don't think song lyrics are appropriate, please tell us. It's just that I remembered:

Please allow me to introduce myself

Sympathy For The Devil & Big Life!