Soul Music
This article is about the novel Soul Music
. For the type of music, see Soul music.The story of the book follows "The Band with Rocks In" through their short-lived but glamorous musical career. A pun on the
Rolling Stones, the band consists of the following members:
*Imp Y Celyn, a young lad from
Llamedos ("Sod 'em all" backwards, see
Dylan Thomas'
Under Milk Wood) who sings and plays the guitar. His name is a
Welsh translation of
bud Y holly ("
bud of the holly"). He looks rather "Elvish" (
Elvis), which is remarked upon several times in the books and leads up to the final pun on the
Kirsty MacColl song "There's a guy works down the fish shop who swears he's Elvis" which was a moderate sized (#14) hit in Britain in 1981.
*Lias Bluestone, a
troll who does percussion, which in typical troll fashion consists of banging rocks together. He later takes on a more rocky name, Cliff (the other members commenting that no-one with a name like
that would ever be able to have a musical hit). His new name is a possible reference to
Cliff Richard.
*
Glod Glodsson, a
dwarf that plays horn, and is not ashamed to admit he's in it for the money.
*
The Librarian joins the Band for a little while to play the organ.
Following the band's amazing popularity, a large number of other "music with rocks in" bands appear, such as:
*We're Certainly Dwarfs (
They Might Be Giants)
*A Big Troll and some other trolls
*Trollz
*&U (
U2)
*The Whom (
The Who)
*Lead Balloon (
Led Zeppelin)
*Insanity (
Madness)
*Felonious Monk (
Thelonious Monk)
One of the bands keeps changing its name and at one point buys a deaf
leopard (
Def Leppard) as a mascot. In another scence, Death is experimenting life as a homeless beggar, and is handed a coin. THANK YOU, replies the grateful Death (
The Grateful Dead).
During the Band's popularity,
Blert Wheedown's Guitar Primer (play your way to succeſs in three easy leſsons and eighteen hard leſsons) [sic] becomes a temporary bestseller in
Ankh-Morpork. Also,
C.M.O.T. Dibbler tries to make big business by selling Band with Rocks In shirts and assorted memorabilia.
Meanwhile,
Death is in one of his philosophical moods, and takes a holiday in search of a way to forget his more troubling memories, such as the recent demise of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband
Mort. In the meantime, his granddaughter
Susan discovers the truth about her heritage when she's forced to stand in for her missing grandfather. Complications ensue when she falls in love with Imp, and tries to save him from his "live fast, die young" destiny as the Discworld's first rock star.
Besides the band references, there are several references to popular songs, movies, and people associated with rock 'n roll culture between the 1950s and 1990s.
Songs references
*"Don't Tread on My New Blue Boots" ("(Don't Step on My)
Blue Suede Shoes")
*"Good Gracious Miss Polly" ("
Good Golly, Miss Molly")
*"Sto Helit Lace" and Buddy saying 'Hello, baby' (
"Chantilly Lace")
*"Pathway to Paradise" ("
Stairway to Heaven")
*The book references at least one person's thoughts on 'the day the music died,' referring both to the plane crash which claimed the lives of Buddy Holly,
Richie Valens, and
The Big Bopper and to the song "
American Pie" commemorating the incident
*When Death takes the leather coat and the Libarian's motorcycle the sentence "with the coat he borrowed from the Dean" comes up which is a parody of the lyrics from the song "American Pie"
Movies references
A Hard Day's Night - many of the band's getaway scenes, and their general lives while in the band
Wayne's World - Blert Wheedown banning the playing of "Pathway to Paradise" in his guitar store
The Wild One and
Rebel Without a Cause - the Dean's increasingly rebellious attitude, as well as his manner of dress (live fast die young) and hairstyle (a
'duck's arse') mirror the youth culture movies of the 1950s, as well as the association of death and motorcycles with music with rocks in. At one stage a mumbling and rebellious Dean is called the 'rebel without a pause'
The Blues Brothers - early in the novel there is a parody of the diner scene where the characters order four fried rats and some
coke (four fried chickens and a
Coke); later, when stealing a piano, Cliff remarks they are "on a mission from Glod" (the Blues Brothers justified their actions by saying they were "on a mission from God.")
*Buddy starting to fade away while playing onstage is reminiscent of Marty in
Back to the Future.
Miscellaneous references
*One of Ankh-Morpork's premier guitar makers is a dwarf named Gibsson (
Gibson produced the first pickup driven electric guitar in the 1930s)
*Glod often redecorates the band's hotel rooms, referring to the common practice, starting with
the Who, of destroying hotel rooms (also parodied in
This is Spinal Tap)
*The University staff become 1950s teeny-boppers with
beehive hairstyles
*While dealing with a band of dwarves, Dibbler insists that they have an interesting name. They are dubbed "We're Certainly Dwarfs." This is a parody of the band They Might Be Giants.
The Cosgrove Hall animation adaptation takes the association of the "Band with Rocks In" with
the Beatles even further than the book does, evolving their style from 1950s rock and early 1960s
bubblegum pop (and mixing-bowl haircuts) in Ankh-Morpok, to
acid rock in Scrote, to spiritual hippie rock in Quirm. In Sto Lat, they sound like the
Jimi Hendrix Experience or
Bad Company, but are dressed in clothes similar to the Beatles on the cover of the
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Also in Quirm, Buddy says that the band is 'more popular than cheeses,' referring to
John Lennon's famous quote proclaiming the Beatles to be more popular than Jesus. In Pseudopolis, their outfits and style resemble the Blues Brothers.
Музика на душата (Bulgarian)
Težké melodično (Czech)
Zieltonen (Dutch)
Hinge muusika (Estonian)
Elävää musiikkia (Finland)
Accros du roc (French)
Rollende Steine (German) (meaning "Rolling Stones". This pun was intended)
Muzyka duszy (Polish)
Музыка души (Russian)
Duševna muzika (Serbian)
Soul Music (Spanish)
Levande musik (Swedish)
*
Annotations for Soul Music*
Quotes from Soul Music
