Naked Lunch: William S Burroughs' Beat classic set to music for spoken word punk album

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It’s time to clear some space in your record collection, because the most “unspeakable” parts of Beat Generation classic Naked Lunch are being put to music for a “psychedelic spoken word” album.

William S Burroughs’ profanity-filled 1959 novel shocked his contemporaries with its graphic descriptions of drug-taking, gay sex and medical experiments but went on to be considered an influential work of literature alongside Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s poetry.

Burroughs recited the most obscene passages from his non-linear, free-flowing novel for an experimental album shortly before his death in 1997 but the project was “buried and put out of print very quickly”. Now, more than two decades later, the audio is being dusted off by producer Hal Willner, known for his collaborations with the late Lou Reed, for use in 13 punk songs. Canadian psychedelic soul singer King Khan, who was greatly supported by Reed, has composed new ambient music to accompany Burrough’s recitations.

Willner has described the excerpts as “very funny in an outrageous way” and noted that the album will be “accessible as well as avant-garde and sophisticated”. Khan, meanwhile, told the New York Times that he sees the writing in Naked Lunch as “really heavy and perverse at a time when society needs to be reminded that you can explore these nether regions of life and bring back something really beautiful”. He found reading the novel as a teenager helpful as it gave him an insight into his father’s recent cocaine addiction. “Naked Lunch gave me a completely different view into addication that made me sympathise with my father’s situation and helped me cope,” he said. “It made a mutation in my mind and left an ooze in my brain that I still go to for inspiration even 30 years later.”

Burroughs regularly joined forces with musicians during his career, including working with Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain for 1993 song “The ‘Priest’ They Called Him” and covering REM’s “Star Me Kitten” with the band.

The new album, named Let Me Hang You after an episode from Naked Lunch, will be released on Khan’s record label on 15 July.