Songs with Sewn-In References: 7 Literary Allusions in Lyrics

As I move through my English Literature and Creative Writing degree, I start to hear allusions everywhere, and especially in the music I listen to. Obscure symbols or lines stand out to me;  I read the lyrics of the full song, and I see how a song-size narrative could have been inspired by it, or how the narrative is enriched by knowing the context of the poem. 

I’ll be dissecting songs with prominent lines or literary symbols…maybe this will inspire you to read more poetry…or start a playlist of your own. 

Bastille, “Weight of Living, Pt. I”. Bad Blood (2013) & Taylor Swift, “The Albatross”, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024)

Dating back to the Romantic period of literature, there was a poet by the name of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and joined by his more conventionally named “close friend”, William Wordsworth, they published a volume of poetry called “Lyrical Ballads”, and the first poem was the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In this poem, the speaker is a mariner who is in charge of a ship and other sailors. Their ship is steeped in ice, and an albatross bird appears and guides the ship out of disaster. Out of his greed and entitled nature, the mariner kills it. This act brings a curse onto the ship, leading it to be stranded and the crew to die of thirst. The mariner lives a long life after this,  wandering and sharing his story, having to teach others to respect nature and living things. 

In Bastille’s use of the symbol, they start the song with an address to an audience that feel that life is a burden they carry. Framing the albatross tied around the neck of a person, and asking if they could carry it with no regret of the past. 

In the chorus, there is a repetition of “there is an albatross, shoot it down, shoot it down”, just like the action of the mariner. But in this case the albatross represents all the regret that holds the person back from living a happy authentic life. 

The bridge repeats “the sun is in your eyes”. Sunlight is a call to wake up or confront challenges or truths even if they are glaring and overwhelming. The line can also call back to the end of the poem where the mariner starts to find importance in living things resulting in having his curse lifted. Just as the sun in the eyes of the struggling person can be a symbol of hope of renewal and a new life. 

Bastille’s use of the albatross was not the last one in recent music history, Taylor Swift on her 2024 release of the song “The Albatross” employs the symbol too. Swift adapts the albatross into the framework of a woman with a foul reputation, or concept of women positioned as villainesses who should always bear blame. Albatrosses are also birds that are free-spirited forces that cannot be tamed. The line, “cautions issued”, can harken back to the poem, as the mariner’s crew cautioned him, and told him not to kill, and in turn, when he does kill the bird, he is cursed to tell his story as a cautionary tale.

At the end of the song, the speaker claims their identity as an albatross proudly “I swept in at the rescue / The devil that you know / Looks now more like an angel / I’m the life you chose / And all this terrible danger”

This homage to the rime of the ancient mariner is a subversion. In the final chorus of the narrative style song, Swift turns the negativity of the people talking about her, or women, as a big bad albatross to what the truth is: the albatross’s ferocity and power. Through loving somebody despite all the rumours and accusations, the speaker transforms from a painted devil to a haloed angel. 

Additionally, as seen in the Bastille homage to the poem, the albatross has come to mean a magnificent burden or a danger. The song reminds the audience that if someone, notably a woman, becomes a problem, it is because it was once shot down and/or killed. It is also important to remember that the albatross was an innocent living thing, who originally saved the sailors from natural disaster. Additionally, it was the act of violence against the albatross that brought the mariner’s curse, not the bird itself. History has rewritten this tale, and through the narrative that Swift has constructed, using women as the albatross, has restored the original meaning of the albatross for those who care to dissect it.

Hozier, “Francesca” Unreal Unearth (2023)

Hozier’s 2023 work Unreal Unearth is loosely inspired by the 14th century masterpiece, “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri and “Francesca” is no exception. The Di Rimini and Malatesta house were at war for a long time, until they were able to broker a peace through a marriage between Francesca Da Rimini and Giovanni Malatesta.Francesca’s father knew that she would not be happy with Giovanni Malatesta as the choice for her husband, especially given his appearance so her father had the Malatesta’s younger, more attractive brother Paolo, step in as proxy for the wedding. The next day, she finds out that the man she met is not her wedded husband, especially as she was pleased to marry him. 

Paolo and Francesca started to see each other, and the pair fell in love. Their affair lasted about ten years until one night, Giovanni called on his wife, only to find her in her bedchamber, hosting his younger brother. In rage, he killed the two lovers with his sword. 

In the “Inferno”, Virgil and Dante meet the two lovers in the hell that punishes the sin of lust which is the fifth canto. Francesca is the one that tells their story to Dante…while Paolo stands idly. Dante writes Francesca in a negative light, angry that she won’t take accountability for the wrongs she committed. although it is not all her burden to carry.

 Hozier’s version of the song paints Francesca from a light of tribute, and to the power of undying love. The song starts with powerful questions and statements, seemingly from the perspective of Francesca as a full and capable person. 

“How could you think, darling, I’d scare so easily?/ Now that it’s done / There’s not one thing that I would change”

These lines highlight how Francesca does not regret loving Paolo and despite where they are, in Hell, she would do it all again, as per one of the chorus lines, “Tell them ‘put me back in it’”. 

The end of the song is a repetition of the line, “Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and i”, suggesting the two nursed a love so intense that it would transcend divine rules and that they have remained together, burning, in the fifth canto of hell despite it all. Hozier’s rendition of Paolo and Francesca is a celebratory love, where their relationship is stronger than all the external challenges. 

Maisie Peters, “Wendy”, The Good Witch (2023) & Taylor Swift, “Peter”, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024)

“Wendy” takes inspiration from J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan, particularly Wendy Darling. Peters reimagines the tale of Neverland and Peter Pan as a metaphor for love and the tension between responsibility and freedom. In the story, Wendy has always been a symbol of maturity, and takes care of the Lost Boys and Peter. Within the context of the song, the speaker explores the burden of having to act as a Wendy to a romantic partner. Similar to Peter Pan’s forever boyhood, the other partner would be opposed to commitment. Neverland, where he resides is a world of eternal youth, which is magical but also reflective of Peter’s tendency to deflect responsibility. In Wendy’s case, it was a temporary adventure that ended. 

In the song, the speaker is caught up in the “magic and maybes” that Neverland offers but knows that will not lead her to sustainable life. In the song’s reimagining of Wendy, she grapples with the type of life she could have with Peter, but it comes with sacrificing things that make her who she is. Additionally, she considers that she could wait on Peter to mature and come back to her. 

When Peters writes,“what about my wings / what about Wendy?”, she is illuminating the fact that there comes a loss with that growth however, knowing that it does get old being forever young, and that other opportunities arise when you do let yourself grow. According to the J.M Barrie tale, Wendy did not stay forever, but Peters is asking, what became of her then? What happens after you leave Neverland or a relationship that made you feel magical but you knew couldn’t be?

In Taylor Swift’s retelling of the 1904 tale, her song “Peter” paints a picture of an older woman, similar to Wendy Darling who sits at the window, lit by a long candle, awaiting their partner, labelled as Peter. The speaker is reflecting on their past and how the speaker still holds the memories close, “in closets like cedar / preserved  from when we were just kids”. The speaker continues to state that she did not want to leave Neverland, or the bliss of the relationship, and only did because it was promised that it was only “goodbye for now”. 
The chorus repeats like a mantra, “said you were gonna grow up / then you were gonna come find me”. The promise that Peter made, is unlike the fairytale character, Peter Pan does not grow up and he does not leave Neverland. The speaker continues to label the words as childish promises that were “never to keep”. The bridge fits in further allusions to the tale, employing the image of “letting the lamp burn” and the fact that Peter would return with their feet on the ground, rather, ready to settle down, to tell her all that they’d learned. But the speaker then accepts that she must have been lost to the “Lost Boys” chapter of Peter’s life. The speaker insists that she did not give up, she wanted to revive the magic “but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light”.

Honourable Mentions

Other honourable mentions of lyricists who prove their love for literature are

• Lana Del Rey’s song, “Body Electric”, references influential American poet Walt Whitman’s poem “I sing the body electric” which is an exact line Del Rey uses in her extrapolation of the poem 
• Singer Saint Levant’ 2024 single “Deira” with MC Adbul where he sings about the Palestinian struggle, and references Maya Angelou’s autobiography, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” , in the line, “Imagine trying to fly with no wings / but i promise you the caged bird sing in the wintertime”. The title employs the metaphor of the caged bird, which is a symbol of oppressed peoples, and pairs it with the image of singing, because the bird, and the people, though caged, will not be silenced

Art is all interconnected and no matter what kind of artist you are, you can inhabit or take inspiration for other texts to revive old texts or repurpose them and expand on them, this collection is an excellent reflection on how poetics repeat themselves.

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