Sunday, August 3, 2025

A Musical Tribute to Edward Hopper - Night Hawks at the Diner

This post was triggered by reading a recent review of Paul Weller’s Movin On (B-Sides, Rarities and Deep Cuts).
Track 5’s description raised my eyebrows; Hopper (White Label Remix)
A reworking that first appeared on the deluxe version of 2017’s A Kind Revolution, this remix turns the New Orleans shuffle of the original into a piece of atmospheric dub. It proves to be a fine accompaniment to Weller’s vocals, hymning the magic of Edward Hopper’s late-night, nightlife paintings.
Immediately I had to think of my Artist Sketches compilations which were great fun to put together.
I quickly checked on YouTube Weller’s Hopper (both original as well as the dub) as his AKR album had completely passed me by at the time and didn’t regret it, great song!
Even Jonathan Richman mentioned Hopper as an influence:

"Edward Hopper, especially that painting of the gas station at night—Gas (1940)—was my inspiration for a lot of the songs I made up with my band The Modern Lovers when I was a kid. Especially “Roadrunner” owes to that gas station painting, but any songs I made up about lonely nights on lonely highways and the way lights were like friends in the dark. This is what “Roadrunner” was about. The Velvet Underground covered this kind of stark, lonely feeling of wonder and had a sound which, with its drowning darkness, felt right for my explorations into bleak, modern-world terror. That plus Hopper was a big part of my starting music."

This made me wonder whether I should start working on a 3rd volume of Artist Sketches.
Since Hopper hadn’t been included in the first 2 volumes I started searching for other songs about him.
To my surprise I found many, for whatever reason his paintings are considered highly inspirational!

What seemed like an obvious candidate, Tom WaitsNight Hawks at the Diner, I finally decided not to use as Waits himself never acknowledged a connection between his album and Hopper’s painting…
But that left more than enough tracks, most from artists I’d never heard of before and incorporating all kind of musical genres: rock, classical, jazz, electronic, instrumental, English, French…
Besides Paul Weller, there are Jay H. Alanski, The Whirlees, Lone Jac, Stephen Cummings, Cloudmachine, Jesse Malin, and Marchesi singing about Hopper or the atmosphere of his paintings.
Special mention for Orchestral Manœuvres in the Dark, their Night Café features 7 title references to the American realist painter’s work in the song.
Olivier Béranger and Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine pay tribute to Hopper in French and the Japanese Sunaga T Experience go for a jazz experience.
The remaining participants; Andrea Padova, Stuart Meyer, Alexandre Regnault, and Dimitri Leroy, pay respect through instrumentals.
I hope you enjoy this special Hopper tribute!

6 comments:

  1. Link: https://mega.nz/file/nRtwhbDJ#S1maA6xYz3GaVjQth8A-R0SKx0cCFrD938NYMaZH7sQ
    Question: Do you know any other artist who has generated a lot of musical tributes like Hopper?

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  2. Escher? I must do research on the amount of times Escher is used.
    Dali is used quite often within the Psychic TV realm (Dali is not Crazy) with quotes for samples.

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    1. Great concept, Koen! I can think of album COVERS that were tributes to artists: Bow Wow Wow (Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe), Banshees (Klimt), Little Feat (Fragonard), Pogues (Raft of the Medusa), and OMD's tribute to the "Dazzle Ships":

      https://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2025/06/04/edward-wadsworth-woodcuts/

      The Banshees dedicated "Mittageisen" to the artist John Heartfield, and Snakefinger had a song called "Save Me From Dali"...

      Lots of punks went to art school, and the Turnbull brothers (from 23 Skidoo) are the sons of a famous sculptor!

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    2. Escher is a good one Richard. I checked as well, a lot of songs/instrumentals!

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    3. Thanks Jonder, more artistic ideas to consider!

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