I’ve never actually listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Nevertheless, the 1973 album made a lasting impression on me starting in the mid-90s. That’s when “MTV News” host Kurt Loder reported the music’s surprising synchronicity with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

We were still on dial-up at this point. No one downloaded (much less streamed) albums and movies. With neither the music nor the film available to me, I simply marveled at the notion that two works—separated by decades—could be brought together by the happy, accidental discovery of a (probably stoned) fan.

Even now, with the internet at my fingertips, I have yet to test the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz theory. I worry the reality will never match my childhood reverie.

All the same, the idea inspired my own recent pairings. Since cinema isn’t my forte, I substituted film with literature. Below are scenes and excerpts from some of my favorite books, accompanied by songs from some of my favorite artists.

If you aren’t familiar with the tunes, go ahead and dial up the old World Wide Web and give them a listen; if you haven’t read the books, I’ve included the essential details and excerpts required to appreciate these unusual duets. 

The Walkmen’s “All Hands and the Cook” and Toni Morrison’s Sula

The song is just over four minutes long. The incessant bass and drum combo mimic the sound of a distressed heartbeat. Meanwhile, the guitar’s reverb paired with the organ creates a haunting, expansive sound that comes in and out like a flickering candle. The instrumentation alone sets an ominous mood. And then arrives Hamilton Leithauser’s inimitable vocals—at times guttural, at times shrieking. The ensemble signals to the listener that some shit is about to go down.

This foreboding tune is the perfect accompaniment to Toni Morrison’s Sula. Specifically the final scene in the novel’s chapter “1921.”  In this passage, a restless, one-legged Eva Peace gets out of bed in the middle of the night to confront her grown son, Plum: a World War I veteran and heroin addict, certainly suffering from undiagnosed PTSD. Gathering her sleeping child in her arms, Eva stirs Plum who welcomes her with drowsy amusement. Eva is angered by his mirth. Yet, she laughs along with him.

This is where the music and the passage truly merge. Because as Eva laughs, the song erupts with a heavy crash cymbal and synchronized run on the piano and guitar. The lyrics sink further into darkness: Leithauser alludes to mental instability, broken windows, and dormant bodies burned down in their sleep. Which of course is Plum’s destiny. Eva douses her boy in kerosene. High, the oblivious man-child is pleased by the scent, having no idea he’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. 

Modest Mouse’s “Dance Hall,” and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

The lyrics mean little in this pairing, in that I’m not completely sure what singer Isaac Brock is saying beyond the repetitive chant of “Dance Hall.” But no matter! The song’s choppy guitar and aggressive snare create a manic number that matches perfectly with the opening passage of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Never mind Ishmael—that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m interested in is a pair of sentences that arrive shortly after the narrator’s introduction. I remember listening to a college professor reading the following passage aloud my junior year, in awe of the rhythmic, accelerating pace Melville creates:

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” 

“Dance Hall,” opens with a similar build-up. The track begins with white noise. The brief crackle is filled with a low rumble of bass and drums accompanied by sleepy guitar notes. Then comes Brock’s throaty grumble, wherein the song quickly strikes into its chaotic, repetitive chorus.

Read back Melville’s words to the opening of “Dance Hall.” Imagine a bustling 1851 New York City street and an unhinged Ishmael marching down it, threading carriages, fellow pedestrians and peddlers, fists clenched, fighting every destructive and self-destructive urge.

Of course, just before Ishmael might act on these impulses, the memory of the sea saves him. Melville’s subsequent line, in reference to the ocean, reads: “This is my substitute for pistol and ball.” And with that, the song’s opening chord progression shifts into a light (albeit temporary), melodic rift.

Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs (continued)” and Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel

As the final song (and continuation) of Arcade Fire’s opening title track, this finale runs a mere one minute and twenty-seven seconds. But it packs a punch, capturing a disorienting tension that weaves its way through the entire album.

The song’s somber strings are met by Win Butler’s whispering vocals. His words express the revelation that youth is not wasted on the young, but rather that youth is waste. (And a waste that the singer would love to waste away in for one more wasted minute.) Yet by the song’s end, Butler and fellow vocalist Régine Chassagne opt not to waste away, but instead revert back to the opening track’s original chorus, wherein the two singers echo one another in a shared disbelief that they no longer truly desire these former wasted versions of themselves.

Pair this track with Thomas Wolfe’s 1929 epigraph, which the author penned for his debut novel, Look Homeward, Angel. Wolfe’s poetic lament is the precursor to Arcade Fire’s 2010 song.

Except in Wolfe’s case, the argument is flipped. The romantic idealization of the past is initially attacked: “Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”

But unlike Arcade Fire’s eventual acceptance of a period forever lost, Wolfe’s contempt subsides, as the author reverses course, plunging deep into the past, concluding his epigraph with the famous remark: “O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”

– Thomas Calder