The Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination

List of Figures 

List of Tables 

List of Contributors 

Acknowledgments

Copyright Credits

Introduction: Reflections on the Literary Imagination in Progressive Rock and Metal 

Chris Anderton and Lori Burns  

Part I. Theoretical Frameworks  

1.     More Erudite Than Your Average Rock Band: Progressive Rock and Literature 
Andy Bennett 

2.     Cross-Pollinations: Progressive Rock and Science Fiction 
Chris Anderton 
 

3.     So Hard to Find in My Cosmic Mind: Hippie Spirituality and Jon Anderson’s Lyrics 
John Covach 
 

4.     “Everything in the Lower World Has Its Root in Higher Worlds”: Rock and Religion in Jon Anderson’s Chagall Songs 
Jonathan C. Friedman 
 

5.     Poets and Prophets: The Lyricists of Early Progressive Rock from Self-Creation to Parody 
Leonardo Masi 
 

6.     The Origin of Progressive Metal Lyrics in Black Sabbath’s Music 
Nolan Stolz  
 

7.     The Dystopian Impulse in Prog: Cross-Cutting Thread/ts in Dystopian Concept Albums 
Marcel Bouvrie 

Part II. Literary Adaptations 

8.     Time Travel Through Tolkien 
Sarah Hill and Jon Gower 
 

9.     Into the Storm: Blind Guardian’s Nightfall in Middle Earth and the Tolkien Reception in German Metal Music 
Martin Ringsmut 
 

10.  Storytelling Strategies in Camel’s Music Inspired by The Snow Goose 
Ryan Blakeley 
 

11.  Musical Evocations of the Uncanny in David Bedford’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 
Kevin Holm-Hudson 
 

12.  Royal Hunt’s Adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the Interplay Between Narrativity and Western Art Music 
Aleksandar Golovin 
 

13.  Neo-Progressive Rock and Children’s Literature: Stories of Innocence and Experience in Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood and Pendragon’s The Masquerade Overture 
Marion Brachet 
 

14.  Kamelot’s Adaptation of Goethe’s Faust: Tragic Subjectivities in Power Metal 
Lori Burns 

Part III. Mythologies and Folklores  

15.  Singing Minstrels, Recorders, and the Carnivalesque: Gentle Giant’s Medievalist Imagination 
Richard Worth 
 

16.  “We Are The Varangian Guard”: Musical Rhetoric and Literary Reference in Turisas’s Varangian Way Albums 
Milan K. Schaller 
 

17.  “Enuma Elish Is Re-written”: A Quantitative Survey of Mesopotamian Mythology’s Reception in Metal Lyrics 
János Fejes 
 

18.   Keeper of the Seven Keys: Fantastical Themes of Ironic Ambivalence at the Birth of Power Metal 
Grigorios Mathioudakis 
 

19.  “Legend Never Dies”: Mythology and Canon of Literature in Symphony X’s Underworld 
Andrzej Mądro 
 

20.   Recovery, Escape, and Consolation: Uriah Heep’s The Magician’s Birthday as Fairy-Story 
Joshua B. Tuttle 
 

21.   “A Maze with Very Minimal Guiding Light, Thematically Slithering Between Worlds”: Black Metal, Progressive Rock, and Ambivalent Constellations of Imagination in Remmirath’s Shambhala Vril Saucers 
Owen Coggins 

Part IV. Storyworlds 

22.   Narrative Worldmaking as Social Commentary in Pink Floyd’s Animals 
Alexander C. Harden 
 

23.  Invisible Nonsense: Zero the Hero’s Journey in Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy 
Jay Keister 
 

24.  The Edge of This Airfield: Ballardian Liminal Spaces in the Music of Trevor Horn 
Jacob Holm-Lupo 
 

25.  Finding Progressive Rock in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 
Ivan Tan 
 

26.  Dream Theater’s The Astonishing: The Unification of the Literary and the Musical 
Ciro Scotto 
 

27.  Storytelling, Narrative, and Coherence in Avatar’s Feathers and Flesh (In His Own Words) (2017) 
Elise Girard-Despraulex 
 

28.  The Hauntology of Story, Gameplay, Images, and Music: Hajo Müller, Steven Wilson, Jess Cope, and Ovosonico’s Last Day of June 
Patrick Armstrong and Lori Burns 

Part V. Subjectivities and Identities  

29.  The New Jerusalem: Genesis and Englishness 
David Pattie 
 

30.  Us & Them: Dystopias, Resistance, and Literary Influences in Roger Waters’ Work (1968–2019) 
Philippe Gonin 
Translated by Anthony Ghilas
 

31.  Las Alturas de Machu Picchu: Los Jaivas, Progressive Rock, and the Unmooring of Latin American Identity 
Israel Holas Allimant and Sergio Holas Véliz 
 

32.   “La Libre Creación”: Exploring Narrativity in the Progressive Rock of Northwest Spain during the Spanish Transition to Democracy 
Eduardo Garcia Salueña 
 

33.  Resonating Authenticities: Chinese Progressive Rock Lyrics as Socio-Political Critique and Cultural Expression 
Mengyao Jiang 
 

34.  Ambiguity, Identity, and Memory in Japanese Progressive Rock 
Akitsugu Kawamoto 
 

35.  Tool Album as Gesamtkunstwerk 
Nicole Biamonte and Jerry Cain 

Index 

Biography

Chris Anderton is Associate Professor in Cultural Economy at Southampton Solent University, Southampton, U.K. He has written/edited five books and published numerous chapters and journal articles on music business, music festivals, music fandom, music genre, media narratives of music, and progressive rock. He guest-edited a special edition of Rock Music Studies that focused on progressive rock (2019), and is currently co-editing The Intellect Handbook of Global Music Industries. He is also the editor of The Anthem Impact in Music Business, Technology and Culture book series.

Lori Burns is Professor of Music at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, merges musical analysis and cultural theory to explore representations of gender and sexuality in the lyrical, musical, and visual texts of popular music. She has published articles in edited collections and leading journals. Her 2002 monograph, Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity, and Popular Music, won the Pauline Alderman Award in 2005. She is co-editor of The Pop Palimpsest with Serge Lacasse (2018), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Popular Music Video Analysis with Stan Hawkins (2019), and Analyzing Recorded Music with William Moylan and Mike Alleyne (2022). Two additional edited collections are forthcoming: The Routledge Handbook of Metal Music Composition with Ciro Scotto and The Routledge Handbook to the Popular Music Cover Song with Mike Alleyne.

This expansive and ambitious volume avoids the allusions and gaps often found in prior scholarship that spans the humanities and social sciences. Rather than vaguely allude to overlaps between progressive rock and metal, this volume’s contributors systematically investigate the notable overlaps that emerge as musicians (and fans) of both genres draw upon literature in deliberate and varied fashion. Thus, the contributors delve into the literary source materials used by prog and metal musicians; they interrogate the manner in which those sources are adapted; and they take seriously the reception and resonance of the elements that result from this interplay between music and literature. The contributors also fill a notable gap. They not only focus on the usual bands (e.g., Yes, Tool), nations (e.g., the UK and US), and literary sources (e.g., Tolkien, science fiction) found in progressive rock and metal, they also present in expert fashion the geographical sprawl (e.g., from bands and audiences in South America to those in Asia) and literary diversity (e.g., from Aristotle to anime) that mark both musical genres. This expansive volume offers much-needed correctives and illuminating advances, and hence, it will serve as an important resource for scholars in multiple disciplines.

Timothy J. Dowd
Emory University, USA

This an outstanding collection of chapters that explore the intersections between progressive rock, metal and the literary imagination. Each contribution here is a must-read and the editors have done an incredible job framing the
Handbook.

Karl Spracklen, PhD, AcSS
Leeds Beckett University, UK

Chris Anderton and Lori Burns have compiled an immense collection of chapters that are wide-ranging and far-reaching in their historical, geographical and disciplinary diversity. Exploring the myriad ways in which aspects of songs, albums, album art and live performances intersect with storytelling and storyworlds, Progressive Rock, Metal and the Literary Imagination offers scholars, listeners and fans a fresh perspective on these two titanic genres.

Nick Braae 
Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand

There are many book-length studies of progressive rock and metal, but none have tackled directly how prog and metal musicians engage with storytelling and literary themes—an indispensable defining characteristic of both genres. For The Routledge Handbook on Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination, Chris Anderton and Lori Burns have assembled an impressive array of contributions from among the leading scholars in the field, providing a wealth of analytical frameworks and perspectives that shed new light on this rich and fascinating repertoire.

Mark Spicer
City University of New York, USA