Boo Radley
Today is Harper Lee’s birthday (thank you Rare Book Room)… and everyone has read the high school required To Kill A Mockingbird. The details of the book slowly faded from memory, except for the names of the main characters, specifically Boo Radley. The reason it stayed with me for so long was in part due to the musical band The Boo Radleys.
It’s fascinating (and telling) how many musical groups take their names from books or elements of literature. A quick look at some:
- Moloko - from A Clockwork Orange
- Grapes of Wrath - after the book
- Our Lady Peace - named after a Civil War poem
Veruca Salt - a character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Sixpence None The Richer - after a line in the CS Lewis book Mere Christianity
- The Velvet Underground - after a book of the same name
- Steppenwolf - after a book of the same name
- Père Ubu - is the main character in Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Roi
- Deadeye Dick - after Kurt Vonnegut’s book of the same name
Love and Rockets - apparently after a graphic novel of the same name- Supertramp - after the book The Autobiography of a Super Tramp
- The Doors - after Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception
More? Your favourites?
November 26th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
I’d have to say that I didn’t like the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie much at all. The old one was way better.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
You can’t forget Steely Dan. They were named after an, um, item that appears in Burroughs Naked Lunch