“Entropy”
Warren Zevon
García Iborra and de Jódar Bonilla (40) write that in the liner notes of his 1996 compilation I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, classic rocker Warren Zevon acknowledges having been inspired by “Entropy.” Links and further reading: modern word | allmusic.com | discogs.com
V.
Mimi and Richard Fariña: “V.” from Celebrations For A Grey Day (1965) ♥
Richard Fariña’s liner notes of Celebrations for a Grey Day.
In the liner notes of Celebrations For A Grey Day, Richard Fariña writes: “Call it an East-West dream song in the Underground Mode for Tom Pynchon and Benny Profane. The literary listener will no doubt find clues to the geographical coordinates of Vheissu, the material antecedents of the younger Stencil, and a three dimensional counter-part of Botticelli’s Venus on the half shell. May they hang again on a western wall.” Pynchon was Fariña’s friend, best man, and pallbearer. Gravity’s Rainbow is dedicated to Fariña and Pynchon wrote an endorsement and an introduction to the 1983 issue of his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. It can be argued that Fariña is also one of the people Tyrone Slothrop is based on. Listen to the song on Youtube.
Soft Machine: “Esther’s Nose Job” from Triple Echo (1970/1988) ♥
A reference to Esther’s nasal surgery in chapter 4. The song that is up to 15 minutes in length, sometimes made up of two parts, was also released on Live at the Proms 1970 (1988), as a bonus track on the 2007 CD reissue of Third, on a 2014 four-CD set Live in 1970, and on a number of other Soft Machine albums. See Moore 56–57. Listen to the song on Youtube.
The Insect Trust: “The Eyes of a New York Woman” from Hoboken Saturday Night (1970) ♥
Insect Trust’s second and last album, containing “The Eyes of a New York Woman.”
The lyrics of this pretty little tune are verbatim from the song of the same title (V. 141). García Iborra and de Jódar Bonilla write that “Pynchon was displeased with the band and threatened with legal actions if the band did not withdraw the album. After some negotiations the band agreed to stop its performance live and Pynchon stopped legal actions” (40). I have not been able to trace this story to its origins, but Mike Weaver provided me these two links by Ed Ward (in one of which he erroneously attributes the lyrics to The Crying of Lot 49): NPR | furious.com. See also Daw 46–47. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Benny Profane: Where is Pig? (1986)
The English band Benny Profane, active 1985–90, borrowed their name and the title of their 12” vinyl Where is Pig? from Pynchon. Benny Profane is also credited as the writer and producer of the songs (among which “Vain Profane”) and as one of the graphic designers of the cover. Listen to “Vain Profane” on Groovesharks.
Ed Hall: “Rachel Hourglass” and “Roger Mexico” from Gloryhole (1991)
The indie band from Austin, Texas, dedicated a song each to two of Pynchon’s characters: Rachel Owlglass from V. and Roger Mexico from Gravity’s Rainbow. Links: allmusic.com | Youtube: “Rachel Hourglass”, “Roger Mexico”
Tim Ware: “She Hangs on the Western Wall” (mid-1990s) ♥
This website’s own Tim Ware recorded some music inspired by Pynchon. One is a reference to V. Link: timware.com
Favorite Color: “V. in Love” from Color Out of Space (1996)
The lyrics, credited to Pynchon, are not from chapter fourteen by that title but those of “The Eyes of a New York Woman” (chapter six, 141). The band is named after a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, and another tune on this record is entitled “Valis,” a reference to a novel by Philip K. Dick. Link: allmusic.com
Time in Malta
The San Francisco hardcore band, active 1997–2004, apparently got their name from V. to which the lead singer turned after giving up on Gravity’s Rainbow (read here). Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com
Forked Yew
There was an experimental rock band from the American South, Pynchon fans apparently, that got their name from the bar in V. Band member Dead Joe contributed a text to themodernword.com.
The Whole Sick Crew
Another V.-named band, this time Irish-style. They have one track, “Honest Sailor,” on a compilation. They also released a demo-CD that is available on Youtube. Other tracks reminiscent of Pynchon, at least by title, include “Girl at Every Port” and “The Vomits,” possibly a reference to Vineland’s Billy Barf and the Vomitones
Thrice: Vheissu (2005)
The album title is a reference to the mythical land of Vheissu. Novelist Dave Eggers is co-credited for the cover artwork. Links: Wikipedia | last.fm | discogs.com | allmusic.com | Youtube
Matt Pavolka: “Vheissu” from Something People Can Use (2008)
Another Vheissu reference, this time in the jazz idiom. It also appears on Pavolka’s 2014 album The Horns Band. Links: discogs.com | allmusic.com
Mike Cooper: Spirit Songs – The Pynchon Project ♥
For a number of years, British blues guitarist Mike Cooper has cut up parts of V. and Gravity’s Rainbow and turned them into music. Read his statement on his website and watch him perform on Youtube.
Unverified references
L.A.-based Tiger Army released an album (their fifth) entitled V ••• – in 2016. Although the singer Nick 13 cites World War II and paranoia as inspiration in an interview and reviewer Hal Horowitz compares their music to a great number of artists Pynchon mentions too, there is no indication that the album was inspired by the novel. Other albums with the title V where a Pynchon connection could not be verified include those recorded by the metal bands St. Vitus (1990), Spock’s Beard (2000, their fifth), Centvrion (2015, their fifth), and The Flight of Sleipnir (2014), as well as surf rock band Wavves (2015, their fifth).
A Laserdisc Best of B.J. Thomas compilation includes a song with the title “The Eyes of a New York Woman,” credited to Thomas Pynchon. The song exists but the credit is likely the product of sloppy work on a not properly licensed collection (or the doings of a Pynchon fan) as this compilation does not appear on the official B. J. Thomas website and the song is usually credited to Mark James or B. J. Thomas. Still, Thomas could be a model for the type of torch song anthology for male vocalists Zoyd Wheeler fantasizes about as he has recorded at least one of the songs Zoyd had in mind, “Since I Fell for You” (Vineland 36). Other oldies mentioned in Vineland Thomas has published on his many compilation albums include “So Lonesome I Could Cry” (6) and a number of pop Christmas tunes.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 “Entropy” and V. (this page)
3 The Crying of Lot 49
4 Gravity’s Rainbow
5 Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and miscellaneous homages
6 Bibliography and Biography
For myself, reading Pynchon is such a personal experience that I really prefer providing my own soundtrack. This is still a very interesting look at the quite wide influence that Mr. Pynchon ‘s work has had on musicians. I hadn’t realised how wide. My personal preference is Devo’s “Whip It”. It is direct and to the point without extraneous extrapolation. Just sayin’.
Your preference for providing your own soundtrack for reading Pynchon is probably a feeling shared by many of the musicians on this list, I would think, which is why they did create their own soundtrack. Some of the above tracks and albums would still fit nicely into my reading.
I enjoyed this very much and look forward to reading more. A lot of this was new to me and I will seek a lot of these recording out, particularly those which have tried to create songs from the books. One of my favourite things about reading Pynchon is when characters burst into song.
The debut album of the ambient music project, Shadowy Lines is devoted entirely to Gravity’s Rainbow. The album is called “Mindless Pleasures”. You can download it on Bandcamp as a Name-your-price deal. Here’s their webpage:
http://www.autohypnosis.net/shadowylines/albums.html
Here’s the Bandcamp link:
https://shadowylines.bandcamp.com/album/mindless-pleasures
Thank you, Mike, for these additions! Thanks also to John Krafft and Thomas for a good number of other suggestions! I added them all. Now I count about 95 entries, but still not a single one for Inherent Vice or Bleeding Edge. Anyone want to do a recording of Meatball Flag’s timeless surf classic “Soul Gidget”?
Singer/Songwriter David Arthur Brown is a self-expressed Thomas Pynchon fan and often alludes to his work via his band Brazzaville. Most notably the song “Soft Parade,” from Morrow Bay (2013).
“Summer days remind me of the Soft Parade. Seventeen in L.A. and my heart kept breaking. So long ago—road trips down to Mexico—with ‘On The Road’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow.'”
The Jazz Butcher – Lot 49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8EVyEaXu_I
Thanks! This one is already listed (with a different Youtube link) as “Looking for Lot 49.”
So “Life During Wartime” by Talking Heads isn’t a condensed view of GR?
What is GR if not life during wartime?
“I’ve changed my hair style so many times now I don’t know what I look like.” That’s not Tyrone Slothrop who changes his personality/name three or four times until his atoms just dissipate?
Yeah, possibly. Thanks for this. Before I add it to the list, I wonder if we can get more info to corrobate this. After all, there’s also a line that is very un-slothroppy: “No time for dancing, or lovey dovey I ain’t got time for that now.”
I am on the recording of “Unsung Pynchon” by Barry Koron, who was my partner at the time we recorded it in New York in the 1980s. We made a CD, of which I have a copy, but I don’t know if there are any of them left. I thought I gave you this information a few years ago, since you seemed to know so little about it. It’s a wonderful recording.
Sorry about my late answer… If you still have the CD, I think it would be wonderful if you could upload the MP3s somewhere and share them with the universe! That way I could link to those tunes.
Barry passed away last year and I don’t know what the copyright situation is (if any) regarding these songs now. I will ask his daughter.
Full of references in the track titles here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sombunall-Beneva-Clark-Nova/dp/B002RZZ14G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Beneva+%26+Clark+Nova&qid=1594675035&s=dmusic&search-type=ss&sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sombunall-Beneva-Clark-Nova/dp/B002RZZ14G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Beneva+%26+Clark+Nova&qid=1594675035&s=dmusic&search-type=ss&sr=1-2
I wonder if these are actual references and not just resonances that we as readers of Pynchon are sensitized to. Is there any other piece of information to corroborate that these songs were inspired by Pynchon?
The song in page 300 of my edition of V is very similar in content to “We Suck Young Blood” by Radiohead, who are previously known to have made several Pynchon references.
The song “V” by Golden Smog from 1995’s Down by the Old Mainstream. It’s a great song!
Thanks, Anthony. That is a great song! I’m just not convinced that it’s a reference to Pynchon. Except for “V” there’s little to make that assumption, I think, and I found the following on the internet: “V is an ode to a friend of the band’s, a bartender from the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis.”
Here’s a Gravity’s Rainbow playlist I put together as I read the novel over the past several months
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IwJR1RYnxY2LARCnT1X6d?si=b52b7eedcc164aa1
Thank you, Eric. Would you like to explain what made you include songs? Inspiration, resonances, occasional reference perhaps?
All three of those. Some of the songs directly reference the novel, while some deal with similar themes. I also tried to imagine what Pynchon may’ve been listening to as he worked on the novel. But mostly the playlist was an exercise to help me make sense of the novel, even imagining what a film soundtrack would look like.
I think I may have written to you before about Barry Koron’s Unsung Pynchon. It was recorded in New York in 1987 and I am one of the performers on the recording. Barry was at that time my fiance and he wrote all the songs when we were living together, so I got to sing them all (but not on the recording).
Hi Carolyn, yes you did tell me a little over two years ago. It would be great if you could make the recording available! I will probably go through these pages soon and update some links, add a bit here or there.
Thanks for this – was prompted to come here when trying to locate some info about my own band, Greenfield Leisure, who are kindly included in your list (“too fat to frug, baby, that’s what you tell me all the time!”). If I recall correctly, we even tried contacting Mr Pynchon via his literary agent to get permission to “adapt” the lyrics, but something about the author living in a cave meant we didn’t get a definitive reply – so we thanked him anyway on the record sleeve. The late John Peel played “Too Fat To Frug” on his BBC Radio One evening show back in the day – there is an audio clip of Peel’s wry intro somehwere on the interweb. Greenfield Leisure still pop up from time to time on college radio, internet stations, eBay, Discogs and YouTube. Oh, and for die-hard fans, there’s a bunch of stuff on Bandcamp. Thanks for listening.
For the past twenty years i have been performing, live and on record, something I call Spirit Songs. They are all generated, William Burroughs/Bryon Gysin style, by cutting up Gravitys Rainbow and V. I improvise the backing to these pieces rendering each rendition completely different. No fixed harmony, tune or melody. There are many versions scattered across the music platforms. One of my favourites is this one – https://mikecooper.bandcamp.com/album/mike-cooper-spirit-songs-live
While many of these references are to single songs and less well known acts one should note that Mark Knophler’s entire album Sailing to Philadelphia was influenced by Mason/Dixon.