5 Songs That Need Book Adaptations

“Once in a Lifetime,” by Talking Heads (The Best of Talking Heads)
The narrator of this song finds himself with a beautiful wife, a beautiful house, and a large automobile, and asks himself, “How did I get here?” If that isn’t a setup for a novel, I don’t know what is. Did he lead a virtuous life or did he lie, cheat, and steal to gain those spoils? Did he start out from a position of privilege or raise himself up? Maybe he doesn’t remember because he has amnesia. I’d also like to see the sequel to this book, because nothing that perfect ever lasts—where does the trouble start first: with the car’s transmission, dry rot in the house, or the wife’s out-of-control betting on fantasy football?

“The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” by Prince (Sign ‘O’ The Times)
In this Prince puzzler from 1987, Dorothy Parker is not the famous satirical writer, but “a waitress on the promenade.” Prince comes to her diner to cool off after a fight with his lover, and orders a fruit cocktail, which prompts Dorothy to inexplicably tell him, “You sound like a real man to me”—with a cherry on top! She invites him to take a bath. Prince agrees, but only if he’s allowed to keep his pants on. He takes a pants-on bubble bath, and then removes his pants because they are now wet. So do he and Dorothy get even better acquainted at that point? Well, no. “She didn’t see the movie ‘cuz she hadn’t read the book first,” Prince informs us. So Prince takes another bubble bath with his pants on and then the song ends, and I’m thinking, don’t stop there! What on earth is going on with this bizarre relationship? I’d need a whole novel to better understand this woman who’s turned on when a man eats fruit cocktail, and this man who insists on bathing in his pants.

“Hey Mama,” by David Guetta and Nicki Minaj (Listen)
I’m amazed at the workload Nicki Minaj sets for herself in this song. She promises to do all the cooking and all the cleaning for her man and to keep him pleased in a variety of ways, all while being both a lady and a freak. All he needs to do in exchange is call her name like “hey Ma Mama.” I am exhausted just thinking about this. I want to know more of the story of this couple—is Nicki a frazzled superwoman like Kate Reddy in I Don’t Know How She Does It, or is this more of a Fifty Shades of Grey situation? Agreeing to do all the cooking and cleaning qualifies as masochism in my book.

“The River,” by Bruce Springsteen (The River)
I’d like to see a book from the perspective of the wife of this song’s narrator, who explains the trajectory of his life in this way: “I got Mary pregnant, and man that was all she wrote. For my nineteenth birthday, I got a union card and a wedding coat.” Perhaps Mary divorced that whiner, who was always going on about the old river where they used to make out as teenagers. Mary probably never liked it, with the muddy banks, biting insects, and perpetual risk of discovery. And yet her husband kept talking about going down to the river, constantly, even though they had bills to pay and he always claimed he didn’t have much work “on account of the economy.” Really, he was just lazy. Now Mary is married to a dentist who takes her to a nice hotel for romantic interludes instead of a muddy riverbank.
 

“The Girl from Ipanema,” (Girl from Ipanema: The Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook)
This classic Brazilian bossa nova song leaves listeners with a cliffhanger and multiple questions only a book adaptation could answer. The girl from Ipanema goes walking, causing men she passes to sigh, and the singer to pine, unable to tell her he loves her as she stares straight ahead not sparing him a glance. Who is this lovelorn man, and does he ever work up the courage to speak to her? Perhaps we could follow the girl ahead in time, to when she’s no longer so tall and tan and young and lovely. What did she learn from her years as a heartbreaker? Did she find the guys looking at her all the time and sighing heavily to be kind of creepy?