Abstract

This essay examines the reception of Blake in pop music and its influence on the author function which Blake has come to serve. Drawing on song lyrics and research on blogs and in the music press, it shows how for a number of performers in the 1990s and 2000s, Blake provides a range of inspirational roles. The essay traces links between different pop iterations of Blake: political radical, mythmaker, hedonist, visionary Londoner, and deliberately uncompromising artist. The essay suggests that Jim Morrison's mediation of Blake as a shamanic hedonist has exercised an important and transformative role on the subsequent reception of Blake, especially among musicians.