This Handbook illustrates the many ways that progressive rock and metal music forge striking engagements with literary texts and themes.
The authors and their objects of analytic inquiry offer global and diverse perspectives on these genres and their literary connections: from ancient times to the modern world, from childrens literature to epic poetry, from mythology to science fiction, and from esoteric fantasy to harsh political criticism. The musical treatments of these literary materials span the continents from South and North America through Europe and Asia. The collection presents critical perspectives on the enduring and complex relationships between words and music as these are expressed in progressive rock and metal.
The book is aimed primarily at an academic market, valuable for second through final year students on undergraduate courses devoted to both popular music and to literary studies, and to postgraduate programs and researchers in a range of fields, including: popular music studies, musicology, creative music performance and composition, songwriting, literary studies, narrative studies, folklore studies, science fiction studies, cultural studies, liberal studies, and sociology, and for media and history courses that have an interest in the intersection of narratives, music and society.
This Handbook illustrates the many ways that progressive rock and metal music forge striking engagements with literary texts and themes. The authors and their objects of analytic inquiry offer global and diverse perspectives on these genres and their literary connections.
List of Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reflections on The Literary Imagination in Progressive Rock and
Metal
Chris Anderton and Lori Burns
Part I. Theoretical Frameworks
1. More Erudite than Your Average Rock Band: Progressive Rock and Literature
Andy Bennett
2. Cross-pollinations: Progressive Rock and Science Fiction
Chris Anderton
3. So Hard to Find in My Cosmic Mind: Hippie Spirituality and Jon Andersons
Lyrics
John Covach
4. Everything in the lower world has its root in higher worlds: Rock and
Religion in Jon Andersons Chagall Songs
Jonathan C. Friedman
5. Poets and Prophets: The Lyricists of Early Progressive Rock from
Self-Creation to Parody
Leonardo Masi
6. The Origin of Progressive Metal Lyrics in Black Sabbaths Music
Nolan Stolz
7. The Dystopian Impulse in Prog: Cross-cutting Thread/ts in Dystopian
Concept Albums
Marcel Bouvrie
Part II. Literary Adaptations
8. Time Travel Through Tolkien
Sarah Hill and Jon Gower
9. Into the Storm Blind Guardians Nightfall in Middle Earth and the
Tolkien Reception in German Metal music
Martin Ringsmut
10. Storytelling Strategies in Camels Music Inspired by The Snow Goose
Ryan Blakeley
11. Musical Evocations of the Uncanny in David Bedfords The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner
Kevin Holm-Hudson
12. Royal Hunts Adaptation of Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 and the
Interplay Between Narrativity and Western Art Music
Aleksandar Golovin
13. Neo-progressive Rock and Childrens Literature: Stories of Innocence and
Experience in Marillions Misplaced Childhood and Pendragons The Masquerade
Overture
Marion Brachet
14. Kamelots Adaptation of Goethes Faust: Tragic Subjectivities in Power
Metal
Lori Burns
Part III. Mythologies and Folklores
15. Singing Minstrels, Recorders, and The Carnivalesque: Gentle Giants
Medievalist Imagination
Richard Worth
16. We are The Varangian Guard: Musical Rhetoric and Literary Reference in
Turisass Varangian Way Albums
Milan K. Schaller
17. Enuma Elish is Re-written: A Quantitative Survey of Mesopotamian
Mythologys Reception in Metal Lyrics
Jįnos Fejes
18. Keeper of the Seven Keys: Fantastical Themes of Ironic Ambivalence at
the Birth of Power Metal
Grigorios Mathioudakis
19. Legend Never Dies: Mythology and Canon of Literature in Symphony Xs
Underworld
Andrzej Mdro
20. Recovery, Escape, and Consolation: Uriah Heeps The Magicians Birthday
as Fairy-Story
Joshua B. Tuttle
21. A Maze with Very Minimal Guiding Light, Thematically Slithering Between
Worlds: Black Metal, Progressive Rock, and Ambivalent Constellations of
Imagination in Remmiraths Shambhala Vril Saucers
Owen Coggins
Part IV. Storyworlds
22. Narrative Worldmaking as Social Commentary in Pink Floyds Animals
Alexander C. Harden
23. Invisible Nonsense: Zero the Heros Journey in Gongs Radio Gnome
Invisible Trilogy
Jay Keister
24. The Edge of this Airfield: Ballardian Liminal Spaces in the Music of
Trevor Horn
Jacob Holm-Lupo
25. Finding Progressive Rock in JoJos Bizarre Adventure
Ivan Tan
26. Dream Theaters The Astonishing: The Unification of the Literary and the
Musical
Ciro Scotto
27. Storytelling, Narrative, and Coherence in Avatars Feathers and Flesh
In His Own Words (2017)
Elise Girard-Despraulex
28. The Hauntology of Story, Gameplay, Images, and Music: Hajo Müller, Steven
Wilson, Jess Cope, and Ovosonicos Last Day of June
Patrick Armstrong and Lori Burns
Part V. Subjectivities and Identities
29. The New Jerusalem: Genesis and Englishness
David Pattie
30. Us & Them: Dystopias, Resistance, and Literary Influences in Roger
Waters Work (19682019)
Philippe Gonin
31. Las Alturas de Machu Picchu: Los Jaivas, Progressive Rock, and the
Unmooring of Latin American Identity
Israel Holas Allimant and Sergio Holas Véliz
32. La Libre Creación: Exploring Narrativity in the Progressive Rock of
Northwest Spain during the Spanish Transition to Democracy
Eduardo Garcia Salueńa
33. Resonating Authenticities: Chinese Progressive Rock Lyrics as
Socio-Political Critique and Cultural Expression
Mengyao Jiang
34. Ambiguity, Identity, and Memory in Japanese Progressive Rock
Akitsugu Kawamoto
35. The Tool Album as Gesamtkunstwerk
Nicole Biamonte and Jerry Cain
Index
Chris Anderton is Associate Professor in Cultural Economy at Southampton Solent University, Southampton, U.K. He has written/edited five books and published numerous chapters and journal articles on music business, music festivals, music fandom, music genre, media narratives of music, and progressive rock. He guest-edited a special edition of Rock Music Studies that focused on progressive rock (2019), and is currently co-editing The Intellect Handbook of Global Music Industries. He is also the editor of The Anthem Impact in Music Business, Technology and Culture book series.
Lori Burns is Professor of Music at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, merges musical analysis and cultural theory to explore representations of gender and sexuality in the lyrical, musical, and visual texts of popular music. She has published articles in edited collections and leading journals. Her 2002 monograph, Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity, and Popular Music, won the Pauline Alderman Award in 2005. She is co-editor of The Pop Palimpsest with Serge Lacasse (2018), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Popular Music Video Analysis with Stan Hawkins (2019), and Analyzing Recorded Music with William Moylan and Mike Alleyne (2022). Two additional edited collections are forthcoming: The Routledge Handbook of Metal Music Composition with Ciro Scotto and The Routledge Handbook to the Popular Music Cover Song with Mike Alleyne.
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