Just for fun! Great Gatsby vs. Lorde

[ScienceGirl]

Where does literature meet music? A lot of writers have their playlist. I think this was a thing long before music became something you could contain in a hand-held device. Surely the music influences the words that land on the page.

I was looking up something on SparkNotes tonight for a former student and came across this quiz. Lorde is an interesting musician. I like her challenge to modern convention. She almost seems like an other-worldy out-of-time sort of figure. 

I'm curious to see how everyone does on this. Can you decipher between the Lorde lyrics and Gatsby? LOL I got 9/12 but only because I second-guessed myself on two of them. 

www.sparknotes.com/blog/quiz-is-this-a-great-gatsby-quote-or-a-lorde-lyric/

But the quiz got me to thinking, what authors or songwriters really speak to us with their style and affect our writing? How many fiction stories of the 21st century were influenced by Kanye West or Yung Joc? 

Maybe I'm just an old soul (or actually getting old at this point) but I love Truman Capote and William Goldman.  I could see Goldman listening to Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix maybe as he penned the screenplay for All the President's Men. Capote strikes me as maybe being more into Jazz or something. Tony Bennett or Buddy Rich, maybe. 

And my favorite song lyrically is "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen. I'd really love for people to see this theme in my writing, that there's no excuse for getting bogged down by the struggles of life. We should rise, fight, act, believe... don't just quit, ring the bells that can still ring. 

What's your musical theme?

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what has passed away

Or what is yet to be

Ah, the wars they will be fought again

The holy dove, she will be caught again

Bought and sold, and bought again

The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs

The signs were sent

The birth betrayed

The marriage spent

Yeah, and the widowhood

Of every government

Signs for all to see

I can't run no more

With that lawless crowd

While the killers in high places

Say their prayers out loud

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

A thundercloud

They're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts

But you won't have the sum

You can strike up the march

There is no drum

Every heart, every heart

To love will come

But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

[havekrillwhaletravel]

The Great Gatsby was one of the books that really got me into reading, and I'm a Lorde fan, so quite pleased with myself that I got an 11/12 I never noticed the connection, but it seems so obvious when you point it out. Another Lorde fan! Are you as excited for her new album as I am?

I think another Great Gatsby-musician connection is Lana Del Rey, with her obsession with glamour, fame and Americana.

You also mention Kanye. If Fitzgerald and Arthur Miller were alive today, I think they would really vibe with his music. The thematic and sonic elements of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy complement The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman so well. Kanye's Pinocchio Story isn't from that album, but it's another track of his that feels like The Great Gatsby's estranged cousin. The idea of this famous, wealthy star feeling totally isolated in his own concert. His fans aren't hearing him. He's baring his soul onstage to cheers and fanfare. And the lyrics:

There is no Gucci I can buy
There is no Louis Vuitton to put on
There is no Y.S.L. that they could sell
To get my heart, out of this hell
And my mind, out of this jail
There is no clothes that I could buy
That could turn, back in time

It's just heartbreaking.

I gushed about Sophie Mackintosh's The Water Cure in the reading thread. I can picture her rocking out to PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love when she was writing that book. Both are pieces of art about women driven crazy by love. And both pieces of art are just dripping with dreary atmosphere.

[pelwrath]

I removed my initial post as based on Whale’s post I went off to Mars on what I though this was about.
Never read The Great Gatsby and have no idea who Lorde is.

9/12 on the quiz.

[ScienceGirl]

Jul 10, 2021 11:32:00 GMT -6 pelwrath said:

I removed my initial post as based on Whale’s post I went off to Mars on what I though this was about.
Never read The Great Gatsby and have no idea who Lorde is.

9/12 on the quiz.

I'm sure you've heard this one:




And, watch the movie LOL Skip the book. I love the story, but personally find the POV annoying in the book. Some people love it. It's first person through a character called Nick Carraway who has this almost stalkeresque persona as he makes judgement calls about high-society New York. He sort of observes them directly and even gains their confidance but he's not a member himself. BUt it's kind of weird because being a first person narrator of a world you don't actually live in is kind of maybe... selective and contrived? And it's really thick text, a lot of times spent mostly in Carraway's head.

[pelwrath]

I did watch the movie. Rather well done, and I saw a simile between him and myself, rich society to writing society.




Nice video, good voice. The lyrics were good, came across as slightly haunting or a dream.

[RAVENEYE]

Got 6/12. (I had no idea who Lorde is either.) I can totally see the cross-over between the two. Pretty cool. As for the rest of the discussion, this is a bit over my head. I can imagine the kind of music characters would listen to, but haven't considered the authors in that way. Interesting... From here on, I will lurk and learn.

[havekrillwhaletravel]

Jul 10, 2021 11:32:00 GMT -6 pelwrath said:

I removed my initial post as based on Whale’s post I went off to Mars on what I though this was about.
Never read The Great Gatsby and have no idea who Lorde is.

9/12 on the quiz.

No! I wish you hadn't deleted your post, Pel. It's funny because I read your post and thought I was the one who had rocketed off to Mars So I guess we were either both off the mark or both on it? Haha

[alliecartman248]

A song that I would love to use as inspiration for writing, because it's such great story-telling, is Samson by Regina Spektor:

[Chorus]
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

[Verse 1]
Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of Wonder bread
And went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us
And the Bible didn't mention us
And the Bible didn't mention us, not even once
[Chorus]
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came falling on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

[Verse 2]
Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful
And came into my bed
Oh, I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the morning light, the morning light
And he kissed me 'til the morning light

[Verse 3]
Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of Wonder bread
And went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah, we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the Bible didn't mention us, not even once


[Outro]
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first