A review by a critic identifying the literary precursor to a popular music star
Those immortal lines from ‘The Wasteland’, to wit: ‘Twit twit twit/Jug jug jug jug jug jug’ and ‘Weialalaleia/Wallala leialala’ clearly demonstrate how Paul Simon in the writing of his own lyrics was inspired by Eliot’s masterful use of repetition. Not only can this been seen in that magical refrain from ‘Cecilia’: ‘poh poh poh poh poh [etc.]’ but also in the phrase from ‘The Boxer’: ‘lie-la-lie la lie-la-lie [etc.]’ ending with the unexpected ‘Lie-la la lie-la-lie’.
Sceptics requiring further evidence of this influence need only turn from technique to subject matter. There are, for example, obvious links between Eliot’s ‘river’ – ‘…a problem confronting the builder of bridges’ (‘The Dry Salvages’) and Simon’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, or with ‘Choruses from “The Rock”’ and ‘I am a rock’.
Our conclusion therefore seems incontrovertible – that in Eliot’s end is Simon’s beginning!
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