Ad Hoc #18. Four Hits Inspired by Literature

Pop songs may last only a few minutes but some of them carry stories that are hundreds of years old. Writers, poets and other myth-makers have long inspired musicians. Sometimes directly. Sometimes subconsciously. Here four songs that show how classic literature quietly lives on in pop music.

Kate Bush, ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ (1975)

Inspired by: 'Peter Pan' by J. M. Barrie (play 1904 and novel 1911). In Barrie’s original story, Peter Pan refuses to grow up and lives in Neverland, this is a magical place that never changes. But beneath the fantasy lies something unsettling: Peter forgets people, avoids emotional depth, and remains stuck.

Kate Bush, writing 'Peter Pan Syndrome' in 1975, turns this myth into psychology. Her song isn’t about flying boys or pirates, but about adults who cling to childhood to avoid responsibility. What was once magical becomes limiting. Eternal youth is no longer freedom, but emotional paralysis.

Roxy Music, ‘Avalon’ (1982)

Inspired by: 'Avalon' from the Arthurian legends. In medieval legend, Avalon is the island where King Arthur is taken after being mortally wounded. A place of mist, healing and rest beyond the world of conflict.

Roxy Music’s 'Avalon', released in 1982, transforms this mythical island into an emotional refuge. The song is about exhaustion giving way to intimacy. Battles are over not because they were won, but because they no longer matter. Avalon becomes a private space of calm, love and surrender.

Robbie Williams, ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (2001)

Inspired by: 'Mandalay' (1890) by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling’s poem describes a British soldier longing for Mandalay, a distant place associated with warmth, beauty and freedom. It is a poem of nostalgia and escape.

Robbie Williams’ 'The Road to Mandalay', released in 2001, turns the idea inward. His Mandalay is not a place on a map, but a metaphor for reflection. The song looks back on excess, mistakes and fame, searching for meaning before it’s too late. The journey is no longer geographical, but moral and emotional.

Taylor Swift, ‘This Love’ (2014)

Inspired by: 'Ophelia' from Hamlet by William Shakespeare (around 1601). Ophelia, one of Shakespeare’s most tragic figures, is silenced, overwhelmed and ultimately lost to the water. Later paintings, especially Millais’ famous Ophelia, fixed her image as drifting, beautiful, and undone.

In the song 'This Love' (2014), Taylor Swift draws on this Ophelia-like imagery of water, drifting and surrender. But where Ophelia disappears forever, Swift’s narrator returns. The song rewrites tragedy into survival: love may overwhelm, but it does not erase the self.

A shared pattern

Across these four songs, old stories are not retold, but translated:
•    Neverland becomes psychology
•    Avalon becomes emotional peace
•    Mandalay becomes self-reflection
•    Ophelia becomes recovery

Pop music may feel modern and fleeting, but it often carries echoes of ancient myths, classic plays and old poems. These songs remind us that stories never really disappear. They adapt!

P.S. #Painting. John Everett Millais, 'Ophelia' (1851–1852). Source: wikipedia.

Ad Hoc #17. Before and After

Today, for the first time, my eye fell on the online university Coursera. For free? Yes - some courses. A better answer: almost free. For USD 45 per month, you can take almost all courses.

I now find myself wondering why I’ve missed this website all these years. I vaguely remember having been pointed to it once before, but apparently it didn’t plant a seed back then.

I think the main reason is that I like reading self-selected books at my own pace. I’m also partly arrogant enough to believe that most courses are too superficial and offer too little added value. Just now, I did a quick reality check in the mirror. Courses and books don’t have to exclude each other. Knowledge from both can reinforce one another - like thermal lift for a glider.

In short, it’s never too late to simply start again as a student. I’ve just enrolled in:

 

 

Ad Hoc #16. Liberating and With Responsibility

Ad Hoc #15. Our Emotions

E.O. Wilson (an American biologist) described in 2009 a key problem of modern society in one sentence: “We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.” 

 

His idea is about different speeds of change:

• “Paleolithic emotions”: Our basic feelings and instincts come from a very old past, when humans lived in small groups. We still react quickly to danger, trust our own group more, compete for status, and often focus on the short term.
• “Medieval institutions”: Many of our large systems - government, law, bureaucracy, and other authorities - change slowly. They were not designed for today’s fast, global problems.
• “Godlike technology”: Modern technology gives humans huge power. We can change nature, spread information, and also cause harm on a very large scale.

Wilson’s main point is a mismatch: we have very powerful tools, but our instincts are old and our institutions may be too slow. This can be dangerous in a world where events spread quickly across countries and continents. For historians, this is interesting because it asks a historical question: when technology changes faster than society, how do institutions and culture adapt - and how long does it take?

 

Ad Hoc #14. Aunt Valeria

Addendum to the story of 'Anna from the North' (12-2021).

Anna loves smells. One that lingered in her mind was the smell of oil paint in Aunt Valeria’s studio - that magical place where art seemed to bloom amid a sea of flowers and light.

P.S.  Art: Jeanna Bauck, 'Bertha Wegmann Painting a Portrait' (late 1870s). On display at the National Museum in Helsinki: here. Information on Wikipedia about this painting: here.

Ad Hoc #13. What Problem Solved?

 

Ad Hoc #12. When Lightning Strikes

At the end of a rainbow one can find a pot of gold. (Dutch saying. I didn't check if this is a common saying in other countries too). 

What does one find at the end of a lightning strike? When the lightning discharges into sand we get "glass". It's official name is: fulgurite.

 

Ad Hoc #11. Somehow

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all."

Ad Hoc #10. Trailing Palm Leaves

Vashti Bunyan's song 'I'd Like To Walk Around In Your Mind' (1970)

I'd like to walk around in your mind someday I'd like to walk all over the things you say to me (...)

I'd sit there in the sun of the things i like about you
I'd sing my songs and find out just what they mean to you

But most of all i'd like you to be unaware
Then i'd just wander away, trailing palm leaves behind me
So you don't even know i've been there

 

 

Ad Hoc #9. Jump