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Prog Songs that Honored Historical Figures
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Mascodagama View Drop Down
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Points: 5111 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mascodagama Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 03:33
Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Originally posted by Mascodagama Mascodagama wrote:

Here are a few that may be lesser known:

Steely Dan, Kid Charlemagne - Owsley Stanley
Wapassou, Ludwig - Ludwig II of Bavaria
Ben Allison, Man Sized Safe - Dick Cheney
Charles Mingus, Fables of Faubus - Orval E. Faubus
Isildur's Bane, Picassiette - Raymond Isidore
Dead Kennedys, California Über Alles - Jerry Brown

Not all of them strictly tributes, mind you.



When did the Dead Kennedys become a prog band? LOL
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Points: 181 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Braka Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 06:03
Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

Orgone Accumulator by Hawkwind would have at the very least been inspired by the work of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. King Crimson's Neal and Jack and Me clearly references the so-called Beat poets Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Knots by Gentle Giant is based on the psychoanalytic theories of RD Laing


I have a feeling that Hawkwind's 'In the Egg' - a poem read by Calvert and available on various shady recordings - is also a reference to Wilhelm Reich, though I can't now find anything to support that assertion.

...or is it 'Wage War'?  One or the other.


Edited by Braka - March 20 2019 at 06:04
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Points: 181 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Braka Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 06:10
Robert Calvert, and to a lesser extent Brock,  were also fond of call-outs to various SF writers (other than Moorcock). Song titles or sometimes whole song concepts from books by Asimov, J.G. Ballard ('High Rise'), Roger Zelazny ('Lord of Light' and 'Damnation Alley'), Norman Spinrad ('The Iron Dream'), Harlan Ellison ('Dangerous Visions'),  Greg Bear '(Heads'), E.M. Forster ('The Machine Stops') and probably more I'm not thinking of.  Some of those writers qualify as historical figures. 

OTOH referring to a work of fiction by somebody isn't quite the same thing as referring to the person themselves, but on that criteria you'd disqualify 'Steppenwolf' as well.


Edited by Braka - March 20 2019 at 06:11
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Points: 14129 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Lewian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 08:16
Kate Bush's Cloudbusting alludes to Reich as well, and on top of that she has Houdini and Delius (not that well known English composer).
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Originally posted by Braka Braka wrote:

Robert Calvert, and to a lesser extent Brock,  were also fond of call-outs to various SF writers (other than Moorcock). Song titles or sometimes whole song concepts from books by Asimov, J.G. Ballard ('High Rise'), Roger Zelazny ('Lord of Light' and 'Damnation Alley'), Norman Spinrad ('The Iron Dream'), Harlan Ellison ('Dangerous Visions'),  Greg Bear '(Heads'), E.M. Forster ('The Machine Stops') and probably more I'm not thinking of.  Some of those writers qualify as historical figures. 

OTOH referring to a work of fiction by somebody isn't quite the same thing as referring to the person themselves, but on that criteria you'd disqualify 'Steppenwolf' as well.


Perceptive post certainly. Calvert period Hawkwind is the only incarnation of that band I can stomach frankly (and even then I think he's slumming it with clueless hippies)
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Some more for Joan of Arc - the Tangerine Dream Jeanne d'Arc album and Art Bears Joan.

Univers Zero Jack the Ripper.
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Kraan did a song about the artist, M. C. Escher...
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Ash Ra Tempel's "Jenseits" from their album "Join Inn" is about their meeting with Timothy Leary.


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Originally posted by 2dogs 2dogs wrote:

Some more for Joan of Arc - the Tangerine Dream Jeanne d'Arc album and Art Bears Joan.

Univers Zero Jack the Ripper.
 

Splendid works!
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Points: 181 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Braka Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 12:48
Hmmm,  The Church are listed here as 'prog related.'

How's this for one song:

WELCOME


Camus and Tony Curtis and Donna Stone
Harry Houdini and Al Capone
Scipio Africanus, Leon Redbone
And Harold Flowers

Tree Sri Govinda and Snow White
Edgar Cayce and Shere Hide
Francis Drake who also was a knight
And Stephanie Powers

We welcome you

Ponce De Leon and Roger Moore
Richard Egan and Joan Crawford
Henry the 7th and Bernard Shaw
And Gavin MacKillop

Walter De La Mare and Nick Ward
Johnny Thunders and Betty Ford
Lord Jim and Jack Lord
And Prince Philip

We welcome you
 
Brian Wilson and William Tell
 Harry Belafonte, Alexander Bell
 Archangel Gabriel and Richard Hell
 And Tom Miller

You're like a star to me
You see everything
Astronomy, a part of me
You're like a star to me

Madame Blavatsky and Madame Lash
Johnny Halliday and Johnny Cash
D. T. Reuter, Ogden Nash
Magilla Gorilla
Trevor Johnstone and Tiny Tim
Milli Vanilli and Root Boy Slim
Tony Hancock and Andy Kim
And Wendy Fuller

Ida Lupino and Joyce Bell
(We welcome you)
Melvyn Basten and Mack Sennet
(We welcome you)
Lucy Jordan and Jeff Kennett
(We welcome)
And Alan Muller

You're like a star to me
You see everything
Astronomy, a part of me
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Points: 16362 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 14:14
Originally posted by BaldFriede BaldFriede wrote:

Ash Ra Tempel's "Jenseits" from their album "Join Inn" is about their meeting with Timothy Leary.

And who can forget the Moody Blues "legend of a mind" which references him also. 
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Points: 16362 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 14:15
Originally posted by 2dogs 2dogs wrote:

Some more for Joan of Arc - the Tangerine Dream Jeanne d'Arc album and Art Bears Joan.

Univers Zero Jack the Ripper.

I know it's not prog but the Judas Priest song the ripper is also about Jack the Ripper.
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Points: 12425 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Manuel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 20 2019 at 17:35
Peter Gabriel's "BIKO" about Bantu Steven Biko, a South African anti-apartheid activist. Maybe not so much a prog song, but certainly a good one.
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Originally posted by 2dogs 2dogs wrote:

Some more for Joan of Arc - the Tangerine Dream Jeanne d'Arc album and Art Bears Joan.

Univers Zero Jack the Ripper.

Spinal Tap's Saucy Jack (Sadly, unreleased....)
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Points: 181 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Braka Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 21 2019 at 00:14
Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by 2dogs 2dogs wrote:

Some more for Joan of Arc - the Tangerine Dream Jeanne d'Arc album and Art Bears Joan.

Univers Zero Jack the Ripper.

Spinal Tap's Saucy Jack (Sadly, unreleased....)


May as well throw in the original 'Jack the Ripper' by Screaming Lord Sutch
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The most popular historical figures so far seem to be Joan of Arc and Jack the Ripper Wink.

Some more from albums listed on the site...

Mythos Dedicated to Werner von Braun, Popol Vuh King Minos, Edgar Froese Pizarro and Atahuallpa. I'm not sure how much historical awareness is displayed in Tyrannosaurus Rex's Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love) - with or without John Peel's story about Kingsley Mole - but it perhaps deserves a bonus point for managing to include the second historical figure of Captain Morgan LOL.
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Originally posted by Dellinger Dellinger wrote:

Isn't there a song about Alexander the Great by Iron Maiden?
 
yes
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Originally posted by Manuel Manuel wrote:

Peter Gabriel's "BIKO" about Bantu Steven Biko, a South African anti-apartheid activist. Maybe not so much a prog song, but certainly a good one.
 

yep he died in custody.

I remember seeing Gabriel at Earls Court in the 90's and he did Biko as his encore track. The crowd involvement was so brilliant!
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Points: 26227 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 21 2019 at 01:22
Probably already mentioned but Neal Morse's album Sola Scriptura was about Martin Luther King.

Edited by richardh - March 21 2019 at 01:22
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Points: 11415 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote ExittheLemming Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 21 2019 at 04:08
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Probably already mentioned but Neal Morse's album Sola Scriptura was about Martin Luther King.


I think you mean Martin Luther (founder of Protestantism)Wink
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