As well as being one of the most frequently heard songs, the Lennon-McCartney classic has also found its way into a lot of books
Paul McCartney's draft lyrics for 'Hey Jude'. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters
What's literature's most frequently mentioned song? Hey Jude, apparently – you can find it in 55 books, from Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla ("The people are real. You … Susannah … Jake … that guy Gasher who snatched Jake … Overholser and the Slightmans. But the way stuff from my world keeps showing up over here, that's not real. It's not sensible or logical, either, but that's not what I mean. It's just not real. Why do people over here sing Hey Jude? I don't know") to Toni Morrison's Paradise ("The Cadillac was unmolested but so hot the boy licked his fingers before and after he unscrewed the gas cap. And he was nice enough to start the engine for her and tell her to leave the doors open for a while before she got in. Mavis did not have to struggle to get him to accept money – Soane had been horrified – and he drove off accompanying Hey Jude on his radio").
Elvis, meanwhile, is apparently the most mentioned musician or band, appearing in 1,300 books, while the most mentioned film in literature is Star Wars: among 396 other titles, it's in Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude: "They did watch from the backseat. Dylan steered Heather's attention to crucial details, though Star Wars didn't carry the same impact here, flashing like a View-Master slide in the pinpricked bowl of night, as it did at the Loews Astor Plaza on Forty-Fifth Street."
Thanks to Publishers Weekly's blog PWxyz for pointing me in the direction of one of the best websites I've seen for ages: Small Demons. The site is based on the belief that "powerful and interesting things can happen when you connect all the details of books", and it collates mentions of everything in books, from cities to companies to places, cocktails and cars, allowing it to compile lists such as the ones I've linked to above (Flavorwire collects some more here).
Take a look at Small Demons' page for Jennifer Egan's award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, for example: did you remember Egan referenced Tom Cruise, and Blondie, and Picasso's She-Goat, and The Hobbit? I didn't, but now I can see the quotes where these references appeared, as well as what the characters ate, wore, drove and read.
Small Demons says it has "several thousand" books on the site, with more being added all the time. So obviously its lists of "most mentioneds" aren't definitive – but they're a pretty good start. And once it opens up to public contributions, the numbers are, I'm convinced, going to mushroom. Go and have a look. I promise you won't emerge for ages, so perhaps it's best avoided if you've any deadlines to meet …
Elvis, meanwhile, is apparently the most mentioned musician or band, appearing in 1,300 books, while the most mentioned film in literature is Star Wars: among 396 other titles, it's in Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude: "They did watch from the backseat. Dylan steered Heather's attention to crucial details, though Star Wars didn't carry the same impact here, flashing like a View-Master slide in the pinpricked bowl of night, as it did at the Loews Astor Plaza on Forty-Fifth Street."
Thanks to Publishers Weekly's blog PWxyz for pointing me in the direction of one of the best websites I've seen for ages: Small Demons. The site is based on the belief that "powerful and interesting things can happen when you connect all the details of books", and it collates mentions of everything in books, from cities to companies to places, cocktails and cars, allowing it to compile lists such as the ones I've linked to above (Flavorwire collects some more here).
Take a look at Small Demons' page for Jennifer Egan's award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, for example: did you remember Egan referenced Tom Cruise, and Blondie, and Picasso's She-Goat, and The Hobbit? I didn't, but now I can see the quotes where these references appeared, as well as what the characters ate, wore, drove and read.
Small Demons says it has "several thousand" books on the site, with more being added all the time. So obviously its lists of "most mentioneds" aren't definitive – but they're a pretty good start. And once it opens up to public contributions, the numbers are, I'm convinced, going to mushroom. Go and have a look. I promise you won't emerge for ages, so perhaps it's best avoided if you've any deadlines to meet …
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