Silent reading is okay, most of the time. Sometimes, though, a story requires a soundtrack, something that plays under the pages and captures the atmosphere. Music can help you to relax during a dense chapter or rev up your heart rate before a turn! The concept behind songs and novels is to match sound with story to make both more impact.
This isn’t a new habit, either. There are hundreds of millions of user-created playlists on streaming platforms, and it’s clear that a significant number of these are created around books, moods, or even characters. Opening your free novel reading website or app, putting on music that matches the atmosphere, and fully immersing yourself in the story creates a completely different experience. The community aspect can be useful, too; for instance, FictionMe users sometimes share thematic music, discuss novels, and share their observations. Here are eight novels and eight songs that share the same mood, sadness, or sense of subtle unease.
1. The Great Gatsby and “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey
Gatsby’s entire existence is a fantasy that won’t last when it comes in contact with reality. He hosts parties for a memory of Daisy. Lana Del Rey’s slow, cinematic ballad does the same thing; it’s the fear that love ends after youth, after glamour.
Play it at the times Gatsby glances across the water at the green light. The drama of the song is as dramatic as his. Both are very beautiful on the outside, but very desolate on the inside.
2. Wuthering Heights and “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush
This one really doesn’t need an explanation. In 1978 Kate Bush had a hit with a song that was actually inspired by the novel by Emily Brontë, which was based on Cathy Brontë’s ghost calling out across the moors. The performance itself is theatrical and rather disconcerting, like the book itself.
A very unusual instance when the song was actually created from the book. The soundtrack of their story makes for a more like a completion than a pairing when read along with the book of Heathcliff and Cathy.
3. Pride and Prejudice and “The Book of Love” by Peter Gabriel
Known for its wit, Austen’s novel is also a tale of two proud hearts slowly learning to like one another. But Peter Gabriel’s stripped-back version of “The Book of Love” is a warm, understated version — no big swells, just quiet sincerity.
Use it for the scenes following Darcy’s letter, when Elizabeth begins to rethink everything about Darcy. Simplicity of the song reflects how love slips in through little actions and not big ones.
4. 1984 and “Karma Police” by Radiohead
A dystopia based on paranoia, surveillance, and the gradual loss of independent thought comes to pass in George Orwell’s work. Now, in Radiohead’s “Karma Police”, it has the same disheveled dissonance; there is a feeling of someone always watching, judging, closing in.
The song climaxes into a breakdown that’s too on-point for Winston Smith. It’s most effective in the end chapters where the odds are looking grim and doom is imminent.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird and “Blackbird” by The Beatles
Paul McCartney has stated that “Blackbird” was inspired by civil rights movement in the United States, and that the bird learning to fly metaphor is a metaphor for resilience. This fits Harper Lee’s book quite well, as it’s about being brave in the face of injustice.
The fact that the world is not fair is a theme Scout is picking up as she grows up, and so the song is hopeful and patient. It is not rushed, it is acoustic and above all it is quiet, like Atticus Finch’s steady moral compass throughout the book.
6. The Catcher in the Rye and “Vincent” by Don McLean
Throughout the novel, Holden Caulfield feels like he doesn’t fit in anywhere because he believes that the world is filled with phonies. Don McLean’s tribute to Vincent van Gogh is similarly sad: an image of someone whose worldview was different and who paid an emotional price for it.
Both works are about isolation which is outwardly “rebellious” but inwardly “lonely. The slow song’s melody is appropriate for Holden’s saddest nights wandering through New York City.
7. Moby-Dick and “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac
From its opening page to the end, Herman Melville’s novel is a work driven by obsession. Many choose to download the app for free reading solely for this book—or to find something similar. A legendary work. No matter how much the whale has cost Captain Ahab or his crew, he will never forget the creature that wounded him. The concept of being bound to something or someone one cannot let go of is also explored by Fleetwood Mac in “The Chain.”
The build-up of the song’s melody into a driving and relentless bassline reflects the novel’s own progression. In the final chapters both have a feeling of unstoppable momentum and are on a trajectory towards a bad end.
8. The Little Prince and “Starman” by David Bowie
The tale of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is the tale of a boy who falls from a small planet to Earth, bringing wisdom to those adults who have forgotten how to listen. David Bowie’s song “Starman” is a slightly similar story: someone from another world comes to offer hope to a few who are willing to listen.
Both works are enigmatic, a blend of wonder and sadness, because neither of the visitors is designed for staying. Soaring high in the chorus, the song is perfectly suited to the book’s most poignantly tender moments, particularly at the close, as the prince bids goodbye to his rose.
Building Your Own Bookish Playlist
Start small. Pick one novel you love and choose just one song that captures its central emotion, whether that is longing, fear, obsession, or hope. From there, expand chapter by chapter rather than trying to summarize the whole book in a single track.
Pay attention to tempo as much as lyrics. A slow, minor-key song usually works better for tension than anything upbeat, even if the lyrics technically fit. Over time, this kind of pairing turns a familiar book into something you experience differently every time you open it.
