Musical References in Turtledove's Work

Like many authors, Harry Turtledove references the broad impact musicians and their work have (or have had) on society. Sometimes, these references can give a reader insight into how a particular timeline differs from OTL. Other times, they are more incidental and designed to invoke a specific era or culture. What follows is a list of such references which can be found in Turtledove's body of work, organized by the musician, song-writer, or performer.

Note: As many homages are subtle, they can easily escape the notice of any given reader. Therefore we strongly encourage anyone who has found, or believes he has found, an homage not already on this list, or by an author not represented, to add it.

=Artists=

The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960, and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. The group's best-known lineup consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals).

In Hitler's War Turtledove opens Sergei Yaroslavsky's scene where he returned from fighting in Czechoslovakia with a rephrasing of two lines from The Beatles "Back In The USSR" taking the lines: "I'm back in the USSR / You don't know how lucky you are, boy."

and changing them to reflect the casualties the Soviet Air Force suffered to read:

"Back in the USSR. Sergei Yaroslavsky didn't realize how lucky he was ..."

In the novel Thessalonica, the character Menas kills a Slav warrior in battle with a war hammer. Turtledove describes the scene thusly: "Bang! Bang! Menas' silvered hammer came down upon his head. The Slav writhed, than lay still. Menas hit him again, to make sure he was dead". This is an allusion to the Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", about a serial killer who beats people to death with his silver hammer.

Sherman Edwards
Sherman Edwards wrote the music and lyrics for the musical comedy 1776. The book was written by Peter Stone. The play tells the story of the efforts of a small group of Founding Fathers, specifically Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and especially John Adams to convince their colleagues in the Continental Congress to declare the thirteen rebellious British colonies they represent to be an independent nation, the United States of America.

In the play's first scenes, Adams is portrayed as being engaged in a lonely battle to convince a hostile Congress of the necessity of declaring independence. In the show's opening number, Adams harrangues his colleagues to "Vote for Independency!" but they interrupt their debate over whether to open the windows of Liberty Hall just long enough to tell him repeatedly "For God's sake, John, sit down!"

The play is invoked in Advance and Retreat. Turtledove portrays a sorcerous analog of the American Civil War Battle of Franklin, at which half a dozen Confederate generals were killed in action, including a brigade commander named John Adams (no relation to President Adams). Turtledove creates a number of punnily-named characters to stand in for the unfortunate rebel leaders. Adams's analog is named For Gods' Sake John, an homage to Edwards's play.

Cole Porter
Cole Porter wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Kiss Me, Kate. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi.

In Turtledove's "Father of the Groom", at the wedding of Archie Kidder and Kate, after the vows and before the minister could say anything else, Archie said "Kiss me, Kate!". She did so without understanding the reference which would be to either this musical or a direct quote of a line in Shakespeare's Shrew.

Steely Dan
The rock band Steely Dan released the single "Kid Charlemagne" in 1976. The song, written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, is very loosely based on the real Owsley Stanley, a chemist who came to be known for his high-quality LSD in 1960s San Francisco. While Stanley was never called "Kid Charlemagne", a character by that name with a reputation for producing high-quality LSD appears in the short work "The Fillmore Shoggoth", selling his product to the members of the band HPL.

Al Stewart
Al Stewart is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician. In Supervolcano: Eruption, the song "Came Along Too Late" was one composed and performed by the fictional band Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles. In the "Author's Note" at the end of the volume, Turtledove mentions he wrote an earlier version of the song when his daughter Rebecca asked for songs on historical themes. He also indicated it can be sung to the tune of "Josephine Baker" on Stewart's album Last Days of the Century. Further, in the novel one band member of Squirt Frog describes their music as somewhere between Frank Zappa and Al Stewart.

In the introduction to the short story "Occupation Duty", published in Atlantis and Other Places (page 235), Turtledove quotes Al Stewart's song "Nostradamus": the more it changes, the more it stays the same. It refers to the story's theme that Palestine would still be war-torn even if the POD was 3000 years ago.

Richard Wagner
German opera writer Richard Wagner's drew on the epic poem, the Nibelungenlied, when he composed his ownmagnum opus, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Turtledove also makes use of characters and settings of Nibelungenlied in "The Catcher in the Rhine," although whether or not he was going from the original poem or Wagner's later work is probably academic. It is also very obliquely referred to by Pete McGill in Coup d'Etat.

In the Southern Victory novel American Front, Confederate art afficionado Alfred Forbes derisively dismisses the idea that the United States could be capable of any real cultural refinement. He suggests that the only foreign art that Americans import is German opera, and proceeds to give a decidedly un-complimentary stereotype of a generic scene from Der Ring des Nibelungen.

In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, we finally encounter someone who remembers Wagner fondly: the Nazis. Wagner is held up as an example of an Aryan creative cultural force, and is celebrated in official cultural circles. Among those outside those circles, such as Susanna Weiss, Wagner is despised--though as a Jew, Weiss certainly has reason to object to the Nazis' pretense of the Aryans being the only creators of valid culture, a pretense which the Nazis used Wagner to advance. Perhaps her view of Wagner is shaded by this dynamic.

In West and East, Peggy Druce and Constantine Jenkins attend a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser. Like non-Nazis in other Turtledove works, they are unimpressed by Wagner, but find this particular opera relatively inoffensive.

In The Big Switch Willi Dernen expresses disapproval of Wagner to himself, though he does not do so publicly for fear of political consequences.

(It's probably the case that Turtledove is sharing his own opinions about Wagner in these scenes.)

In Coup d'Etat, appreciation of the beauty of some of Wagner's compositions, including Tristan und Isolde, is expressed--by Jewish characters, of all people!

Also, when Kelly Birnbaum (Jewish as well) is awaiting a desperate helicopter rescue in Yellowstone National Park before the supervolcano can erupt, she thinks of Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries" from Apocalypse Now! and is half disappointed when she didn't hear his "fierce, churning music" play in real life.

=Compositions=

"Der Fuehrer's Face"
During the Race Invasion of Tosev 3, Spike Jones recorded "The Fleetlord's Face", a humorous swipe at Fleetlord Atvar. This is an analog of Jones' 1942 satirical song "Der Fuehrer's Face".

"God Bless America"
In the Southern Victory series, a patriotic American song "God Bless the Stars and Stripes" is best known by the version sung by Kate Smith. This is an analog of "God Bless America", also best known by the Smith version.

Oklahoma!
In the Southern Victory series, a popular Broadway musical called Oh--Sequoyah! debuted in the United States in 1943. This is an analog of Oklahoma!, an immensely popular 1943 musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. In that timeline, the state of Oklahoma was known as Sequoyah.

The Producers
The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks from his 1968 film of the same name. The story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop called Springtime for Hitler. In Turtledove's In the Presence of Mine Enemies where Germany won World War II, there is a similar musical about a theater owner who booked a terrible play about Churchill and Stalin becoming a smash hit.

=Miscellanea=

Madonna and Britney Spears Kiss
At the 2003 MTV Music Video Awards, Madonna and Britney Spears shared a prolonged kiss on stage. Images of that kiss gained substantial notoriety for a time.

In the short story "Bedfellows", when O and W kiss for the first time after they are married, an onlooker asks "Is that hotter than Madonna and Britney or what?"

=References=