Mythology in Music

[urgencytobleed]

I am a huge fan of Greek mythology and recently I've started trying to think of songs that make references to mythological stories, whether it be a passing mention or a song entirely based on one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find as many as I would've liked (it's a bit harder than finding a certain word in the title or something like that!), but here are most of them that I did come up with. From the looks of this list, it seems Tori Amos is the reigning queen of mythology in her songs. Apart from the four she has here, there were also two more possibilities that I decided not to include.

• Anaïs Mitchell - Hades & Persephone

Hades, my darkness, if you had heard how he sang tonight you'd pity poor Orpheus! All of his sorrow won't fit in his chest; it just burns like a fire in the pit of his chest and his heart is a bird on a spit in his chest. How long, how long, how long?

• Anaïs Mitchell - Orion

You were dead when they found you on the floor of your apartment. You were dead and your drum set stood there shining in the dark, shining like stage lights, shining like your eyes, shining like Orion in the night.

• Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Fernando

If you're high strung or stressed out, down in the dumps, been turned out, stabilized, motorized, insecure or fablized, curious, so furious, picked apart like Prometheus, legalize, penalize, simplify, dry out your eyes.

• Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Jack Killed Mom

All the lessons Mama would teach, books from Rome and ancient Greece - men push rocks up stony mountains, turning one fish into five thousand, and a king went blind from his mother's love. A terrible rage came over Jack, his Mama lying on her back, the one who taught him right from wrong and knew no better all along and she got ran through - Jack killed his Mom.

• Joni Mitchell - Amelia

A ghost of aviation, she was swallowed by the sky or by the sea. Like me, she had a dream to fly, like Icarus ascending on beautiful foolish arms. Amelia, it was just a false alarm.

• Kate Bush - The Kick Inside

I'll send your love to Zeus - by the time you read this, I'll be well in touch. I'm giving it all in a moment or two. I'm giving it all in a moment for you. This kicking here inside makes me leave you behind, no more under the quilt to keep you warm. Your sister I was born - you must lose me like an arrow shot into the killer storm.

• Katell Keineg - Hestia

I've been sleeping in a passage way under the sea. I've been hiding from a world I could no longer proceed in... I've been crouching in the fireplace, Hestia.

• Lauren Hoffman - Persephone

Man walk beside me, in shadows side long glance, never dead on stare, for your razor tease my arms bare, Persephone. Teeth sting sweet, eyes closed in the love of blood and if you kiss me forever, if you kiss me with your forever lips, if you kiss me forever, I'll be forever yours.

• Regina Spektor - Oedipus

I stood on my toes to catch a glimpse of my mother's eyes and my mother's skin but she'd retire to her chambers and we remain quite strangers and to see me made her awful sad and to touch me made her awful sad and to see me made her awful and to touch me made her awful.

• Regina Spektor - Lacrimosa

Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down on this day of tears and mourning, from the dust of earth returning, man, for judgment must prepare me, spare oh God and mercy, spare me.

• Tori Amos - Pandora's Aquarium

I am not asking you to believe in me. Boy, I think you're confused - I'm not Persephone. She's in New York somewhere, checking her accounts. The Lord of the Flies was diagnosed as sound.

• Tori Amos - Apollo's Frock

The hunt has now begun 'cause I am tired of you taking from me and I have let you eat from the fruits of my tree. I am not the one to turn into a laurel wreath. For the last time, you have crossed my line.

• Tori Amos - Don't Make Me Come to Vegas

Athena will attest that it could be done and it has been done and I think that I am up to it and the Jacaranda tree, she's telling me of the trouble you're in, just by the way she bends. Remember dancing and wondering as you were swaying, what kind of woman you'd be? "What will be will be", over my dead body.

• Tori Amos - Space Dog

So sure, those girls now are in the Navy. Those bombs, our friends, can't even hurt you now, and hold those tears 'cause they're still on your side. Don't hear the dogs barking; don't say you know we've gone, Andromeda, stood with those girls before. The hair in pairs, it just got nasty, and now those girls are gone.