Wise Blood - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

The English post-punk group Gang of Four on their 1983 album, Hard, included a song titled "A Man With a Good Car" based upon the novel. Former Gang of Four member Dave Allen later went on to form King Swamp whose second album was titled Wiseblood.

Experimental musicians J.G. Thirlwell (using the alias Clint Ruin) and Roli Mosimann formed an industrial/noise-rock project named Wiseblood after the novel, and released an album and three singles/EPs under that name between 1985 and 1991. Thirlwell described the group "violent macho American made by non-Americans."

The recorded line "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified," and presumably others from the 1979 film version of Wise Blood were used as samples peppered throughout the beginning of the extended mix of the industrial-metal band Ministry's 1991 song, "Jesus Built My Hotrod (Redline, Whiteline Version)".

In Bob Dylan's "High Water (For Charley Patton)" on the album Love and Theft, the second part of the lyrics "Well, the cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies/I'm preaching the Word of God, I'm putting out your eyes" are a reference to Asa Hawks.

The North Carolina crossover band Corrosion of Conformity released an album entitled Wiseblood in 1996 in reference to the book.

On the song "Please" from the 1997 U2 album Pop, the lyric "your sermon on the mount from the hood of your car" can be read as an allusion to Hazel Motes and his preferred mode of preaching.

The song "Wise Blood" on Headphones' self-titled album contains the line 'If you think you've been redeemed/Then I wouldn't want to be', a quote from the novel. David Bazan's (frontman of Headphones) writing style has been compared to that of Flannery O'Connor.

The Southern folk minstrel Grayson Capps references Flannery O'Connor in his song "A Love Song for Bobby Long" from the soundtrack of the movie of the same title. The songs protagonist is indicative of the style of character O'Connor might have utilized. In the song Capps refers to the friendship between his father and Bobby Long and says "He was a friend of my papa's, used to drink and tell lies, Praise Flannery O'Connor smoke cigarettes and philosophize.

David Kirby, the poet, references Wise Blood in his poem "Laughter" from the book My 20th century: Poems. In the poem, Kirby mentions that his wife used the name Hazel Motes as a nickname for a neighbor; David would occasionally slip up and call this neighbor "Mr. Motes" to his face.

Johnny "Slim" Campbell's 1993 album Howlin' Mercy featured a song entitled "Wiseblood", which appears to refer to the novel.

In the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song 'I Had A Dream, Joe' the line 'A shadowy Jesus flitted from tree to tree' can be seen as a reference to Mote's views on Jesus.