Musical Influences and Interactions


Burroughs and Bono, Kansas 1997

The Mugwumps
Band name taken from Naked Lunch

Laurie Anderson's Sharkey's Day
Burroughs is on the track "Sharkey's Night"

Laurie Anderson's Home of the Brave 
"Late Show" uses a  Burroughs sample

Laurie Anderson's United States, Parts I-IV
Features the song "Language is a Virus" and is preceded by "Difficult Listening Hour"

Jesus & Mary Chain's Rollercoaster
"Lowlife" opens with Burroughs speaking

X-Files Soundtrack
Burroughs sings R.E.M.'s "Star Me Kitten"
The Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heats Club Band
Burroughs is face # 26 on the album cover 
(third row, 11th from left, next to Monroe)
Nick Haeffner
Uses Burroughs quotes in "Song From the Bottom of a Well"

Decoder Film Soundtrack
Vocal samples Burroughs's cameos in film

Manapsara's Presents "Queer"
Soundtrack to the novel

Tom Waits's The Black Rider 
Libretto written by Burroughs

The Soft Machine
Band named after Burroughs' novel with permission 

Soft Machine's Triple Echo
Burroughs appears on "She's Gone" 

Material's Seven Souls
Producer Bill Laswell works in Burroughs excerpts from The Place of Dead Roads

Material's Hallucination Engine
Burroughs appears on "Words of Advice"

Material's The Road to the Western Lands
An album-length tribe to the Burroughs's novel

Ministry's "Just One Fix" 
With cover painting, "Last Chance Junction And Curse On Drug Hysteria" by Burroughs.  Spoken words by Burroughs and music by Ministry

Skrew's Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame 
Burroughs sample on the track "Poisonous"

Pink Floyd's Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Named from something Roger Waters found in a Burroughs novel

Steely Dan
Band named after a metallic dildo in Naked Lunch

Gordon Mumma  
Composed a piece titled "Megaton for William S. Burroughs" 

William S. Burroughs and Kurt Cobain's The 'Priest' They Called Him
Backing by Kurt Cobain to the text of "A Junkie's Christmas" 

Various Artists:  Cash Cow, The Best Of Giorno Poetry Systems, 1965-1993 
Joint release by East Side Digital and Giorno Poetry Systems.
Artists include Cabaret Voltaire, William S. Burroughs, Debbie Harry, Buster Poindexter, John Giorno, Husker Du, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Coil, Diamanda Galas, Frank Zappa and Glenn Branca

Frank Zappa reads "The Talking Asshole" from Naked Lunch recorded at The Nova Convention, Dec. 2, 1978