{"id":1386,"date":"2013-03-21T15:51:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennywilson.org\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2013-03-21T15:51:47","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:51:47","slug":"thought-tormented-music-david-bowies-low-and-t-s-eliot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/2013\/03\/21\/thought-tormented-music-david-bowies-low-and-t-s-eliot\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Thought-tormented Music’: David Bowie’s Low and T.S. Eliot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted:<\/b>\u00a0January 9, 2013<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Author:<\/b>\u00a0Kathryn<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|<\/span>\u00a0Filed under:<\/b>\u00a0Music<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Tags:<\/b>\u00a0bowie<\/a>,\u00a0modernism<\/a>,\u00a0music<\/a>,\u00a0poetry<\/a>,\u00a0ts eliot<\/a>,william burroughs<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|<\/span>4 Comments<\/a><\/span><\/small><\/p>\n

Fragmented language, Nietzschean elitism, and disillusionment with art: could Bowie\u2019s Thin White Duke era have been inspired by\u00a0<\/em>The Waste Land?<\/em><\/h3>\n

-Kathryn Bromwich<\/p>\n

\"comparison2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Submitted for MA in English: Issues in Modern Culture, University College London, 2009. \n\nShorter, snappier version here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/pre>\n
T.S. Eliot\u2019s early work, particularly\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock<\/i>\u00a0(1917) and\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>(1922), and David Bowie\u2019s\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0(1977), are considered to be ground-breaking in their respective genres of poetry and music. Both antagonise the reader or listener with fragmented language and obscure references, and are united by a similarity in tone: disillusionment with art and distrust of language. Through a discussion of the influence of Eliot on Bowie, this essay will examine the motivation behind the aesthetic choices in both artists, and the ways in which they strive to bring about \u2018newness\u2019. The trend in 1970\u2019s rock towards experimentation and intellectualism is well exemplified by Bowie\u2019s interest in literature in 1977; the link between him and Eliot appears to be considerable, and can be seen as a symptomatic example for a wider movement of innovation in music. The focus will be on\u00a0Low<\/i>, in relation to Eliot\u2019s early poetry and the critical writings of Eliot and Ezra Pound, in order to illustrate the ways in which Modernist ideas, themselves incorporating musical aspects, function when applied to the field of music.<\/p>\n
The disciples of Eliot are numerous, but one who is not often discussed is David Bowie. Passing through William Burroughs, it is possible to establish an indirect influence of Eliot on Bowie. Hugo Wilcken, in his extended analysis of\u00a0Low<\/i>, states that Bowie\u2019s lyrics were often composed in a \u2018cut-up writing style, derived from William S. Burroughs,\u2019[1]<\/a>\u00a0who in turn referred to\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0as \u2018the first great cut-up collage\u2019[2]<\/a>\u00a0and \u2018terrifically important [\u2026] I often find myself sort of quoting it or using it in my work in one way or other.\u2019[3]<\/a>\u00a0However, there is also a more concrete link to Eliot. Three years before\u00a0Low\u00a0<\/i>was released, Burroughs interviewed Bowie and remarked:<\/p>\n
Burroughs: I read this \u2018Eight Line Poem\u2019 of yours and it is very reminiscent of T.S. Eliot.<\/em><\/p>\n
Bowie: Never read him.<\/em><\/p>\n
Burroughs: (Laughs) It is very reminiscent of \u2018The Waste Land.\u2019[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Given that Bowie considered Burroughs to be \u2018the John the Baptist of postmodernism,\u2019[5]<\/a>\u00a0it appears likely that this encounter would have encouraged Bowie to read Eliot.<\/p>\n
Momentarily leaving aside musical and poetic aesthetics, it is worth noting the similarities between Bowie and Eliot from a biographical point of view. Bowie constructs different \u2018characters\u2019 in relation to the music he is creating, and during the recording of\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0assumed a persona that bore striking similarities to Eliot\u2019s early characteristics: the \u2018Thin White Duke.\u2019 Bowie\u2019s new character, much like Eliot, was interested in mysticism and the occult, and both entertained a certain amount of quasi-Nietzschean intellectual elitism, coupled with conservative views. Eliot\u2019s biographer Peter Ackroyd relates that the reactionary poet, in his early years, \u2018despised democracy\u2019[6]<\/a>; similarly, in 1976 Bowie claimed to \u2018believe very strongly in Fascism [\u2026] a right-wing, totally dictatorial tyranny.\u2019[7]<\/a>\u00a0Nervous and eccentric behaviour is another point in common: Eliot is known to have occasionally worn green face powder and to have demanded to be called \u2018Captain,\u2019[8]<\/a>\u00a0and there are rumours that Bowie preserved his urine in the fridge to avoid being cloned by aliens.[9]<\/a>\u00a0The Thin White Duke\u2019s fashion sense also seems to be modelled on Eliot\u2019s dandyish appearance: pale, thin, with slicked-back hair, austere black and white clothes, a fedora hat and black overcoat (see photos). It is impossible to say what came first \u2013 whether a longing for newness, or the interest in Eliot \u2013 but both Eliot and Bowie showed similar signs of frustration with contemporary poetry and music.<\/p>\n
Both\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0were composed in volatile political times. In the chaotic aftermath of World War One, it has been argued that experience was fractured by factors such as shell-shock, loss of faith in progress, fear, grief and apathy. In poetic circles there was an increasing distrust of language: in his essay \u2018The Perfect Critic,\u2019 Eliot laments the \u2018tendency of words to become indefinite emotions,\u2019[10]<\/a>\u00a0and symbolist poet St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9 criticises language\u2019s \u2018\u201dpedestrian clarity\u201d full of \u201cplagiarism\u201d and \u201cplatitudes.\u201d\u2018[11]<\/a>\u00a0Paul Fussell argues that there was also a gap between a reality that had been wrecked by modern technologies and a language that had been \u2018used for over a century to celebrate the idea of progress.\u2019[12]<\/a>\u00a0At this time, poetry was mainly discursive, in traditional verse forms, and reliant on a clear understanding of its semantic meaning. Given the fragmentation of post-war consciousness, this traditional form of poetry was felt to be unsatisfactory for commenting on the new world.<\/p>\n
In the late 1970\u2019s, Bowie was in Berlin, perhaps the place in which the escalating tension and anxiety of the Cold War were felt most keenly. Due to the concrete separation of East and West comprised in the Berlin Wall, the city was considered \u2018a microcosm of the Cold War.\u2019[13]<\/a>\u00a0The atmosphere was austere: Bowie described West Berlin as \u2018a city cut off from its world, art and culture, dying with no hope of retribution,\u2019[14]<\/a>\u00a0and Tony Visconti said that \u2018you could have been on the set of\u00a0The Prisoner<\/i>.\u2019[15]<\/a>\u00a0The dominant form of music was largely guitar-based narrative rock, and Bowie, claiming that he was \u2018intolerably bored\u2019[16]<\/a>\u00a0with narration, says that his objective for\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0was \u2018to discover new forms of writing. To evolve, in fact, a new musical language.\u2019[17]<\/a>\u00a0However, after the \u2018classic\u2019 era of Elvis and early Beatles, the music scene had already undergone several movements towards experimentation in the late \u201960s. There were concept albums such as Pink Floyd\u2019s\u00a0The Dark Side of the Moon\u00a0<\/i>(1973) and The Who\u2019s\u00a0Tommy<\/i>\u00a0(1969), the prog-rock movement emerged, there was an interest in virtuoso performances such as Hendrix, and in Germany the electronic movement was gaining momentum. Bowie, at a stage in music when everything seemed to have been done before, felt that \u2018rock \u2018n\u2019 roll is dead\u2026 It\u2019s a toothless old woman.\u2019[18]<\/a>\u00a0His endeavour to achieve novelty, therefore, seems to operate simultaneously with a fear that nothing new can be done.<\/p>\n
In addition to the problematical outside world, Eliot\u2019s and Bowie\u2019s psychological conditions were far from stable. Eliot was diagnosed with \u2018some kind of nervous disorder\u2019[19]<\/a>\u00a0and composed\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0\u2018in a state of extreme anxiety.\u2019[20]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken argues that Bowie was suffering from paranoia[21]<\/a>and borderline schizophrenia.[22]<\/a>\u00a0Both outer and inner worlds became increasingly difficult to express through language: this posed the problem of conveying \u2018non-verbal awareness by verbal means.\u2019[23]<\/a>One of Bowie\u2019s and Eliot\u2019s main preoccupations is a distrust of semiotics, lamenting the impossibility of precise utterance. In\u00a0Prufrock<\/i><\/a>, the speaker attempts to talk, although \u2018it is impossible to say just what I mean,\u2019 and what comes out is \u2018not it at all, that\u2019s not what I meant at all.\u2019 The \u2018overwhelming question\u2019 that Prufrock cannot articulate, becomes in Bowie a need to say something that seems inexpressible: \u2018What you gonna say to the real me, \/ Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhh\u2019\u00a0 in \u2018What in the World.\u2019 What is said, if indeed something is, is never revealed. If art were to express the fragmented idiom of shell-shock and war, and of drug-induced, nervous consciousness, music and poetry needed a new \u2018language\u2019.<\/p>\n
In order to avoid semantic imprecision, both Eliot and Bowie\u2019s work becomes increasingly non-linguistic. The focus is brought towards aspects other than the words. Eliot\u00a0juxtaposed obscure references<\/a>\u00a0and worked through association, making his words deliberately obfuscating:<\/p>\n
Son of man,<\/p>\n
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only<\/p>\n
A heap of broken images (The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0Part I, 20-22)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is a move away from blank verse and iambic pentameter towards free verse, and Eliot concentrated on the poem\u2019s visual and spatial elements, bringing attention to the form of the poem. Lines and stanzas are of different lengths, unevenly spaced and sometimes indented; different sections are divided by lengthy ellipses (the \u2018\u2026..\u2019 in\u00a0Prufrock<\/i>) and visually alarming capital letters are used, for example \u2018HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME\u2019 (II, 141). Similarly, Bowie attempts to eschew words: his collaborator Brian Eno claims that one of the aims of\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0was \u2018to get rid of the language element.\u2019[24]<\/a>\u00a0The music in\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0is mainly instrumental, with occasional chanting, and\u00a0the few lyrics<\/a>are fragmented and enigmatic. The opening song \u2018Speed of Life\u2019 was Bowie\u2019s first instrumental track, and \u2018Side B\u2019 is almost wordless. \u2018Warszawa\u2019\u00a0<\/i>is in a made-up language, using voice as texture rather than as a vehicle for meaning: \u2018He-li venco de-ho\/ Che-li venco de-ho\/ Malio.\u2019 This recalls Eliot\u2019s \u2018Weialala leia \/ Wallala leialala,\u2019 (III, 290-291) which in turn returns to Dadaist sound poetry. Bowie also foregrounds the artificial procedure of studio intervention:\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0relies on synthesisers and distortion of traditional instruments with the Harmonizer, an electronic pitch-shifting device. The relevance of the songs\u2019 linguistic meaning is minimised, while attention is drawn to the process of creating art: the form, indeed, becomes the content.<\/p>\n
Bowie and Eliot also draw attention to style by subverting expectations, making us aware of clich\u00e9d artistic formulae. In\u00a0Prufrock<\/i>, Eliot leads us to expect a romantic poem, but the Laforguean mood change is abrupt:<\/p>\n
Let us go then, you and I,<\/p>\n
When the evening is spread out against the sky<\/p>\n
Like a patient etherised upon a table<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Many of the songs on\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0also defy convention: in Wilcken\u2019s words, they \u2018fade out just as the riff is starting to sink in. Just at the moment you think it might be leading somewhere, it\u2019s gone\u2019 (78). \u2018Sound and Vision\u2019 starts off in a loop, suggesting another instrumental song like \u2018Speed of Life\u2019: however, Bowie\u2019s vocals appear halfway through, change pitch and intonation between lines, and refuse to develop into a structured refrain. The lines \u2018drifting into my solitude\/ over my head\u2019 are sung in a crescendo, intimating a chorus or climax; on the contrary, the song fades out and ends, creating a sense of unfulfilled frustration. Form begins to merge with content, echoing Eliot\u2019s statement that in poetry \u2018we cannot say at what point \u201ctechnique\u201d begins or where it ends.\u2019[25]<\/a><\/p>\n
In\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, the empty spaces on the page suggest an implied score, a harmony that could perhaps unify the inchoate fragments of the poem: it seems to be yearning for a unifying key, perhaps music. The poem moves away from an emphasis on clear semantic denotation, and the form itself creates its meaning. In this respect, Eliot\u2019s poetry can be said to approach \u2018pure form\u2019 and therefore, in Walter Pater\u2019s words, \u2018aspire towards the condition of music.\u2019[26]<\/a>\u00a0Bowie also removes the non-musical elements of lyrics and narrative from his work, instead conveying his meaning through the tone and structure of his instrumental songs, thereby approaching a purer form of music. Given Eliot\u2019s and Bowie\u2019s distrust of language, music is an appropriate form to turn to.<\/p>\n
The dialogue and mutual influence between music and poetry is an ongoing one, and has given rise to numerous disputes as to whether music can ever portray emotion exactly. Brad Bucknell points out that there has traditionally been a \u2018romantic belief in the expressive potential of music\u2019 (2) notably in Arthur Schopenhauer\u2019s dictum that it is \u2018a direct image of the Will itself.\u2019[27]<\/a>\u00a0Pound stated that \u2018poets who will not study music are defective,\u2019[28]<\/a>\u00a0and that they can achieve \u2018an \u201cabsolute rhythm\u201d [\u2026] which corresponds exactly to the emotion or shade of emotion to be expressed\u2019[29]<\/a>\u00a0by incorporating musical elements in poetry, thus communicating at a pre-verbal level. Eliot believed that, though technical musical knowledge was not necessary, \u2018a poet may gain much from the study of music\u2019[30]<\/a>\u00a0in terms of rhythm and structure. Musical technique can be used to convey meaning through melody, rhythm, tone, tempo and through what Roland Barthes would term \u2018the signifying opposition of the piano and the forte.\u2019[31]<\/a>\u00a0However, the signification of a polysemic medium such as music is intrinsically imprecise. The more recent critical consensus tends to be that music is important due to its ability for open signification: Mallarm\u00e9 valued it precisely for \u2018its imprecise, evocative effects.\u2019[32]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot\u2019s and Pound\u2019s poetry most resembles music in its calculated ambiguity and its emphasis on impressions: their poetry could be seen, in Kevin Barry\u2019s words, as an \u2018activity of response as opposed to notions of description or specific naming.\u2019[33]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot, Pound and Bowie approach the form of \u2018pure music\u2019 in their move towards polysemy, adopting music\u2019s resistance to state anything as \u2018truth\u2019.<\/p>\n
\"comparison1\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Instead of attempting to offer a single, clear message and being misunderstood due to the imprecision of language, the works are imbued with multiple unfixed meanings. Several denotations are condensed into single words: Winn states that the poet \u2018alters the meaning of a word by multiplying its secondary associations in order to drown out the dictionary definition\u2019 (332). There is an emphasis on polysemy and logopoeia, taking into account secondary meanings and word connotations. Eliot stated that \u2018in\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, I wasn\u2019t even bothering whether I understood what I was saying\u2019[34]<\/a>: Ackroyd praises it for providing \u2018a scaffold on which others might erect their own theories\u2019 (120). The preface to\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0suggests that there is a message hidden in the poem\u2019s fragments, like the Sybil of Cumae\u2019s riddles. Eliot underlines the importance of ambiguity: \u2018poets in our civilisation, as it exists at present, must be difficult [\u2026] the poet must become [\u2026] more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.\u2019[35]<\/a>\u00a0Similarly, Bowie\u2019s often-abstract lyrics are held together by association and alliteration:<\/p>\n
\n
Don\u2019t you wonder sometimes
\n\u2018Bout sound and vision
\nBlue, blue, electric blue
\nThat\u2019s the colour of my room<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Bowie\u2019s collaborator Brian Eno stated that \u2018the interesting place is not chaos, and it\u2019s not total coherence. It\u2019s somewhere on the cusp of those two.\u2019[36]<\/a>\u00a0Paradoxically, the mimetic method can be seen as more accurate for describing a chaotic modern consciousness than a diegetic one. In order to convey thought processes, Eliot wrote \u2018What the Thunder Said\u2019 \u2018at one sitting in a kind of delirium, rather like automatic writing, aiming to replicate a free-associational structure.\u2019[37]<\/a>\u00a0Bucknell argues that \u2018the text\u2019s very disruptions are meant to be the sign of continuity with our mode of perception. They are intended to be mimetic of our process of knowing the world\u2019 (109). The works\u2019 deliberate ambiguity, and their reluctance to offer a final truth, reflects the uncertainties of perception and thought processes in real life.<\/p>\n
Defying the notion of a single message, Bowie and Eliot also challenge the idea of a single, fixed identity. Eliot maintains a \u2018tension between performer and performed,\u2019[38]<\/a>\u00a0echoing poet Arthur Rimbaud\u2019s paradoxical \u2018Je est un autre\u2019. Both Bowie and Eliot hide their own personality by giving a voice to numerous different characters. In\u00a0Prufrock<\/i>, Eliot writes that \u2018there will be time\/ to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,\u2019 suggesting a deliberate creation of identity.\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, originally entitled \u2018He Do the Police In Different Voices,\u2019 provided an outlet to the thoughts and speech of \u201dcharacters\u2019 which seemed to exist within the personality of Eliot.\u2019[39]<\/a>\u00a0These include men, women, and a synthesis of the two: Tiresias, \u2018old man with wrinkled dugs\u2019 (III, 228). A voice is given to both the aristocracy and the working classes, \u2018O is there, she said. Something o\u2019 that, I said\u2019 (II, 150). Bowie, known for his \u2018chameleonic character,\u2019[40]<\/a>\u00a0has impersonated alter-egos such as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. In the guise of the Thin White Duke, he splits into further additional characters on\u00a0Low<\/i>: \u2018Be My Wife\u2019 is sung in a theatrical cockney accent, \u2018Warszawa\u2019 suggests someone from Eastern Europe, and \u2018Breaking Glass\u2019 is performed in a terse, unemotional voice. It is difficult to gauge the artist\u2019s true intention, or which character voices the views closest to his own.<\/p>\n
Often, attribution of speech to any one character is problematic: Eliot\u2019s speakers and the characters they refer to are not clearly differentiated. In passages such as \u2018when we came back [\u2026] \/ your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not \/ speak\u2019 (I, 36-9) it is up to the reader to decide who \u2018we\u2019, \u2018you\u2019 and \u2018I\u2019 are. In Bowie, lines like \u2018you\u2019re such a wonderful person, but you\u2019ve got problems,\u2019 and \u2018deep in your room, you never leave your room\u2019 could be spoken both by and about his paranoid persona. It is often difficult to assess whether Eliot and Bowie are to be taken seriously or in jest. In\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, Eliot\u2019s verses \u2018veer close to parody or pastiche,\u2019[41]<\/a>\u00a0occasionally indicating his lifelong fondness for the music-hall.[42]<\/a>\u00a0In Bowie, the passage \u2018please be mine\/ Share my life\/ Stay with me\/ Be my wife,\u2019 could be a parody of traditional pop songs, yet Bowie has stated that \u2018it was\u00a0genuinely<\/i>\u00a0anguished,\u00a0I think<\/i>\u2019[43]<\/a>\u00a0(emphasis mine), further reinforcing the sense of ambiguity. The polyphonic juxtaposition of speakers undermines the idea of one central voice or of one \u2018correct\u2019 meaning: we are never sure who the \u2018real\u2019 Bowie or Eliot is.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0there is a move away from a portrayal of the self or of the poet\u2019s own thoughts: their feelings are projected onto their surroundings and other minds. Eliot states that \u2018the progress of art is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.\u2019[44]<\/a>\u00a0This is demonstrated in his endeavour to depict the \u2018Unreal City\u2019 (I, 60) that was post-War London: Eliot \u2018agonised over the fate of Europe represented archetypally in the image of London.\u2019[45]<\/a>\u00a0Robert Schwartz has seen this as Eliot \u2018transmut[ing] personal experience into something of greater dimension while obscuring its autobiographical origins\u2019 (46). The songs on \u2018Side B\u2019 of\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0are, on the surface, about places: Warsaw, West Berlin, the Berlin Wall, and East Berlin. The tone becomes bleaker, reaching its darkest moment in the final song \u2018Subterraneans,\u2019 in which ordinary language creates inscrutable sentences: \u2018Care-line driving me\/ Shirley, Shirley, Shirley own\/ Share bride failing star,\u2019 defamiliarising normal English words and generating a sense of unease. The beginning is slow, juxtaposing violins and synthesisers, and later a lone saxophone is set against a background of muted electonica; the feeling is one of isolation, appropriate for the living conditions in East Berlin. However, according to Wilcken Bowie saw the outside as \u2018a reflection of the self, until you lose sight of where the self stops and the world begins\u2019 (77). On the album cover, Bowie\u2019s hair blends into the orange background, \u2018underlining the solipsistic notion of place reflecting person.\u2019[46]<\/a>\u00a0The self is effaced with the intention of making art that is universal rather than personal; however, the distinction between outside and inside is not as clear as it first appears.<\/p>\n
\"comparison\"<\/a><\/p>\n
The interest in place rather than the individual is especially relevant in the light of Eliot\u2019s and Bowie\u2019s locations. They were both on self-imposed exiles: Eliot emigrated from America to England, and Bowie moved to Germany after a few years in Los Angeles. This move towards Europe involved an increase in erudition to culturally distance themselves from America, where according to Eliot \u2018the [intellectual] desert extended\u00a0\u00e0 perte de vue<\/i>, without the least prospect of even desert vegetables.\u2019[47]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot rejected the increasingly democratised American art scene of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, whose poetry was \u2018in plain American which cats and dogs can read.\u2019[48]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot\u2019s poetry is laden with literary allusions, often foreign: at the end of\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, Eliot references Dante, Kyd, G\u00e9rard de Nerval, the\u00a0Pergivilium Veneris<\/i>\u00a0and the Upanishad. Bowie left Los Angeles, moving away from the euphoric escapism of the glam, punk and disco, and embraced Europe\u2019s avant-garde music scene. His years in Berlin were a time of intense intellectual study: he \u2018amassed a library of 5000 books and threw himself into reading them [\u2026] it became something of an obsession.\u2019[49]<\/a>\u00a0Infamously, the feeling of intellectual achievement gave rise to elitism and Nietzschean delusions in the young Eliot and the Berlin-era Bowie. Ackroyd relates that Eliot \u2018divided human beings into \u2018supermen,\u2019 \u2018termites\u2019 and \u2018fireworms\u2019 [\u2026] there is no doubt that he felt a certain intellectual superiority\u2019 (96). In 1978 Bowie dubbed himself and Eno the \u2018School of Pretention.\u2019[50]<\/a>\u00a0This sense of self-importance resulted in a propensity to showcase their erudition through extensive referencing.<\/p>\n
In their reading, Eliot and Bowie both encountered occult rituals, oriental religion and Eastern philosophy. While writing\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, Eliot contemplated \u2018withdrawal into the hermitage of a Buddhist monastery;\u2019[51]<\/a>\u00a0and \u201dpsychic\u2019 phenomena held a certain fascination for him.\u2019[52]<\/a>\u00a0The methods of the occult are related structurally to the open-ended meanings of\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>: Madame Sosostris gives out knowledge in fragments out of which we hope to construct meaning, but there are things which she, too, is \u2018forbidden to see\u2019 (I, 54). The poem ends by referencing the Upanishad: \u2018Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. \/ Shantih shantih shantih\u2019 (V, 433-4). The Modernist interest in mysticism filtered through to \u201960s and \u201970s musicians, famously the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and features prominently in Bowie. He had an \u2018interest in Buddhism,\u2019[53]<\/a>\u00a0a fascination with Aleister Crowley,[54]<\/a>\u00a0and his work abounds in allusions \u2018to Gnosticism, black magic and the kabbala.\u2019[55]<\/a>\u00a0The cryptic lyric \u2018don\u2019t look at the carpet, I drew something awful on it\u2019 in \u2018Breaking Glass\u2019 is a reference to the Tree of Life. Although the interest in Eastern culture and occult rituals is not exclusive to Eliot and Bowie, it underlines their sense that conveying certain thoughts and feelings in standard English was impossible. In their work, they therefore incorporate different perspectives on the world, drawing inspiration from external sources.<\/p>\n
One of the most striking similarities between Eliot and Bowie is the abundance and openness of their references to old, foreign, and \u2018low\u2019 sources. Another, possibly more conventional way of bringing about change, would be to embrace the new entirely and make a clean break with the past: Frank Kermode states that \u2018the urge to be radically new is itself part of an ongoing history.\u2019[56]<\/a>\u00a0The manifesto of Futurism in the 1910s was to reject classical art and \u2018demolish museums and libraries\u2019[57]<\/a>; the American Modernist poetry of Stevens and Williams in the 1930s concentrated on \u2018the local.\u2019 The \u2018robot rhythms\u2019 of\u00a0Krautrock<\/i>\u00a0in the mid-1970s \u2018were in the process of eliminating the human altogether from the beat.\u2019[58]<\/a>\u00a0Conversely, and perhaps counterintuitively, Eliot and Bowie both allude to traditional forms of their particular art in their attempt to modernise themselves. Eliot argued for a need of the timeless in addition to the temporal, stating that the artist cannot be valued alone but \u2018must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past.\u2019[59]<\/a>\u00a0Perhaps motivated by a disillusionment with the modern, Eliot and Bowie turn towards their predecessors.<\/p>\n
Eliot frequently references classical literature in his work.\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0starts with a reference to spring weather, recalling Chaucer\u2019s \u2018Aprille with his shoures sote.\u2019[60]<\/a>\u00a0In \u2018so many, \/ I had not thought death had undone so many\u2019 (I, 62-3), Eliot translates Dante almost word-for-word: \u2018io non averei mai creduto \/ che morte tanta n\u2019avesse disfatta.\u2019[61]<\/a>\u00a0Direct quotes are included as well, from Shakespeare (\u2018those are pearls that were his eyes\u2019 I, 48) to Baudelaire (\u2018hypocrite lecteur! \u2013 mon semblable, \u2013 mon fr\u00e8re!\u2019 I, 76). Myth was also important: in his essay \u2018Ulysses<\/i>, Order and Myth\u2019 Eliot states that Joyce\u2019s use of the Odyssey \u2018has the importance of a scientific discovery [\u2026] instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method.\u2019[62]<\/a>\u00a0Along these lines,\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0is often said to be based on the quest for the Holy Grail.[63]<\/a>\u00a0Bowie, in turn, alludes to old, traditional and foreign music in\u00a0Low.<\/i>These include chanting in \u2018Warszawa,\u2019 a harmonica in \u2018A New Career in a New Town\u2019, a ragtime riff in \u2018Be My Wife\u2019, and a saxophone in \u2018Subterraneans\u2019. In \u2018The Weeping Wall\u2019, xylophones that Philip Glass compared to Japanese bells[64]<\/a>\u00a0are used to create \u2018the flavour of Javanese gamelan (traditional Indonesian orchestras).\u2019[65]<\/a><\/p>\n
\"comparison3\"<\/a><\/p>\n
The allusions to older forms of poetry and music, however, are set against innovative techniques. Eliot\u2019s untraditional versification is at odds with the classical poets he references, and Bowie\u2019s synthesiser sounds especially futuristic when contrasted to ragtime piano jingles. In returning to the past rather than rejecting it completely, Bowie and Eliot seem to question the concept of innovation itself. The method of referencing old and foreign sources differs from other methods of modernisation in its admission that it does not function in a cultural vacuum, and that is not \u2013 and cannot be \u2013 original. Experimental music combining old and new genres had been done before Bowie, notably in\u00a0Sgt Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i>\u00a0(1967); however, Bowie is set apart from their intentional experimentation by his attitude of disillusionment with art and originality. His creation of personas and unremitting self-reinvention distances him from his music; his embracing of commodified, commercial pop in the 80\u2019s with hits such as \u2018Under Pressure\u2019 and \u2018Let\u2019s Dance,\u2019 could be seen as indicating a sense of ironic detachment.<\/p>\n
The assertion that originality is a myth is a constant source of frustration in both works, and, in itself, becomes a central subject. Eliot believes that he has nothing new or momentous to say: he talks of \u2018Nothing again nothing. \/ Do \/ You know nothing? Do you see nothing? [\u2026] Is there nothing in your head?\u2019 (II, 120-126) and Bowie laments that there is \u2018nothing to do, nothing to say\u2019 in \u2018Sound and Vision.\u2019 Ackroyd posits that Eliot \u2018was immensely susceptible to [the ideas] of others \u2013 the act of creation was for him the act of synthesis\u2019 (106). Brian Eno suggests a similar idea: \u2018some people say Bowie is all surface style and second-hand ideas, but that sounds like a definition of pop to me.\u2019[66]<\/a>\u00a0In Barthes\u2019 terms, rather than projecting themselves as \u2018authors\u2019, entirely original lone geniuses, they are \u2018scriptors\u2019, in whose work \u2018a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.\u2019[67]<\/a>\u00a0They place themselves in the context of past artwork, with no pretence of \u2018pure originality.\u2019<\/p>\n
The apparently unrelated fragments, however, cohere: the fragments are arranged according to meaningful associative links, even if these are left unclear. Eliot said of Saint-John Perse\u2019s poem\u00a0Anabasis<\/i>\u00a0that \u2018any obscurity of the poem, on first readings, is due to the suppression of links in the chain, of explanatory and connecting matter, and not to incoherence\u2019[68]<\/a>: as Schwartz points out, this description is also appropriate for\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>. No matter how innovative the method, Eliot believes that \u2018to conform merely [to any one method] would not be new, and would therefore not be a work of art.\u2019[69]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot and Bowie therefore bring together \u2018particles which can unite to form a new compound\u2019[70]<\/a>: a synthesis of old and new. Both works, bringing to light the impossibility of originality, are characterised not by an intrinsic \u2018newness\u2019, but by a Modernist yearning for the new.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, it seems likely that Bowie had first-hand contact with the works of T. S. Eliot. The music inspired by\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0could therefore be seen as obliquely descending from literary Modernism. When applied to music, Eliot\u2019s aesthetics result in a disjointed, evocative, largely instrumental effect: a new musical language. Both works are marked by disillusionment with language and a move towards \u2018pure form,\u2019 aiming to minimise their dependence on semantic meaning or narrative. They work through associative and mimetic techniques: the content is made ambiguous, giving priority to the form. Different views are expressed through a polyphonic variety of voices, signalling a move away from any single meaning and encouraging a subjective interpretation of their work. The use of old and foreign sources reminds us that art must be considered in its context, drawing our attention to the inspirations that allow it to come into being: the myth of \u2018originality\u2019 in art is dispelled. The eclectic fragments in both\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Low<\/i>, then, are held together by a desire for newness, which is nevertheless tempered by a belief that originality is impossible.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[1]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>Hugo Wilcken.\u00a0Low<\/i>. (NY and London: Continuum, 2005), 82.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[2]<\/a>\u00a0William Burroughs. The Third Mind. (London: John Calder, 1979), 3<\/p>\n
[3]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>John May, \u2018Meeting with Burroughs at the Chelsea\u2019 (2005) <http:\/\/hqinfo.blogspot.com\/2005\/06\/meeting-with-burroughs-at-chelsea.html<\/a>> [accessed 03-01-2009]<\/p>\n
[4]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>Craig\u00a0<\/i>Copetas, \u2018Beat Godfather meets Glitter Mainman,\u2019 from\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>\u00a0(February 1974) <http:\/\/www.teenagewildlife.com\/Appearances\/Press\/1974\/0228\/rsinterview<\/a>> [accessed 03-01-2009]<\/p>\n
[5]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0David Bowie, \u2018David Bowie Remembers Glam,\u2019\u00a0The Guardian<\/i>\u00a0(02-04-2001) <http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/culture\/2001\/apr\/02\/artsfeatures.davidbowie<\/a>> [accessed 03-01-2009]<\/p>\n
[6]<\/a>\u00a0Peter Ackroyd. T. S. Eliot. (London: Abacus, 1984), 109<\/p>\n
[7]<\/i><\/a>Sarfraz Manzoor, \u20181978,\u2019\u00a0The Guardian<\/i>\u00a020-04-2008, quoting Bowie in\u00a0Playboy<\/i>\u00a0(September 1976) <http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/music\/2008\/apr\/20\/popandrock.race<\/a>> [accessed 03-01-2009]<\/i><\/p>\n
[8]<\/a>\u00a0Ackroyd, 136<\/p>\n
[9]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 11<\/p>\n
[10]<\/a>\u00a0TS Eliot. The Sacred Wood. (London: Faber, 1997), 8<\/p>\n
[11]<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>In Brad\u00a0<\/i>Bucknell.\u00a0Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics<\/i>. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 31<\/p>\n
[12]<\/a>\u00a0Paul\u00a0<\/i>Fussell.\u00a0The Great War and Modern Memory<\/i>. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 169<\/p>\n
[13]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 58<\/p>\n
[14]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 119<\/p>\n
[15]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid<\/i>. 112<\/p>\n
[16]<\/a>\u00a0In Thomas Jerome Seabrook. Bowie in Berlin. (London: Jawbone Press, 2008), 112<\/p>\n
[17]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 14<\/p>\n
[18]<\/a>\u00a0In Seabrook, 35<\/p>\n
[19]<\/a>\u00a0Ackroyd, 113<\/p>\n
[20]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>Robert L. Schwartz.\u00a0Broken Images<\/i>. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1988), 34<\/p>\n
[21]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 52<\/p>\n
[22]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 82<\/p>\n
[23]<\/a>\u00a0Aaronson in Bucknell, 2<\/p>\n
[24]<\/a>\u00a0In Seabrook, 114<\/p>\n
[25]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1997, xi<\/p>\n
[26]<\/a>\u00a0Walter Pater. The Renaissance. (Oxford: Oxford World\u2019s Classics, 1998), 86<\/p>\n
[27]<\/a>\u00a0In Bucknell, 22<\/p>\n
[28]<\/a>\u00a0Ezra Pound. The Literary essays. (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), 437<\/p>\n
[29]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid. 9<\/p>\n
[30]<\/a>\u00a0TS Eliot. On Poetry and Poets. (London: Faber, 1957), 38<\/p>\n
[31]<\/a>\u00a0Roland Barthes. Image Music Text. (London: Fontana Press, 1977), 151<\/p>\n
[32]<\/a>\u00a0In James Anderson Winn.\u00a0Unsuspected Eloquence<\/i>. (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1981), 326<\/p>\n
[33]<\/a>\u00a0Kevin Barry.\u00a0<\/i>Language, Music and the Sign<\/i>. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 2<\/p>\n
[34]<\/a>\u00a0In Schwartz, 32<\/p>\n
[35]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1921<\/p>\n
[36]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 68<\/p>\n
[37]<\/a>\u00a0Schwartz, 32<\/p>\n
[38]<\/a>\u00a0Keith Alldritt. Eliot\u2019s \u2018Four Quartets.\u2019 (London: Woburn Press, 1978), 38<\/p>\n
[39]<\/a>\u00a0Ackroyd, 118<\/p>\n
[40]<\/a>\u00a0Seabrook, 22<\/p>\n
[41]<\/a>\u00a0Ackroyd, 117<\/p>\n
[42]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid. 105<\/p>\n
[43]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 97<\/p>\n
[44]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1997, 44<\/p>\n
[45]<\/a>\u00a0Schwartz, 24<\/p>\n
[46]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 127<\/p>\n
[47]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot in James Miller. TS Eliot. (Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 2005), 139<\/p>\n
[48]<\/a>\u00a0Marianne Moore, \u2018England\u2019<\/p>\n
[49]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 38-39<\/p>\n
[50]<\/a>\u00a0Bowie 2001<\/p>\n
[51]<\/a>\u00a0Schwartz, 241<\/p>\n
[52]<\/a>\u00a0Ackroyd, 113<\/p>\n
[53]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 80<\/p>\n
[54]<\/a>\u00a0Seabrook, 36<\/p>\n
[55]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 7<\/p>\n
[56]<\/a>\u00a0In Bucknell, 14<\/p>\n
[57]<\/a>\u00a0Stanley Payne. The History of Fascism. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 64<\/p>\n
[58]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 33<\/p>\n
[59]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1997, 42<\/p>\n
[60]<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>The Canterbury Tales<\/i>\u00a0<http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/22120\/22120-8.txt<\/a>> [accessed 03-01-2009]<\/p>\n
[61]<\/a>\u00a0Inferno III, 56-57<\/p>\n
[62]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot in\u00a0The Dial<\/i>, LXXV (November 1923), 482<\/p>\n
[63]<\/a>\u00a0Schwartz, 14<\/p>\n
[64]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 19<\/p>\n
[65]<\/a>\u00a0Wilcken, 124<\/p>\n
[66]<\/a>\u00a0In Wilcken, 101<\/p>\n
[67]<\/a>\u00a0Roland Barthes. \u2018The Death of the Author\u2019 in the\u00a0Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism<\/i>. (NY and London: Norton, 2001), 1468<\/p>\n
[68]<\/a>\u00a0In Schwartz, 37<\/p>\n
[69]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1997, 42<\/p>\n
\n
[70]<\/a>\u00a0Eliot 1997, 45<\/p>\n
\n
Bibliography<\/h3>\n
Ackroyd, Peter.\u00a0T. S. Eliot<\/i>. London: Abacus, 1984.<\/p>\n
Alldritt, Keith.\u00a0Eliot\u2019s \u2018Four Quartets\u2019: Poetry as Chamber Music<\/i>. London: Woburn Press, 1978.<\/p>\n
Barry, Kevin.\u00a0Language, Music and the Sign : a study in aesthetics, poetics and poetic practice from Collins to Coleridge<\/i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.<\/p>\n
Barthes, Roland. Image\u00a0Music Text<\/i>. London: Fontana Press, 1977.<\/p>\n
\u2015 \u2018The Death of the Author,\u2019 in\u00a0The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism<\/i>, 7th<\/sup>\u00a0edition. Edited by Vincent B. Leitch. New York and London: Norton, 2001.<\/p>\n
Bowie, David.\u00a0Low<\/i>. London: EMI, 1977.<\/p>\n
\u2015 \u2018David Bowie Remembers Glam,\u2019 in\u00a0The Guardian<\/i>, Monday 2 April 2001. Accessed at\u00a0http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/culture\/2001\/apr\/02\/artsfeatures.davidbowie<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
Bucknell, Brad.\u00a0Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics : Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein<\/i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.<\/p>\n
Burroughs, William S. and Brion Gysin.\u00a0The Third Mind<\/i>. London: John Calder (Publishers) Ltd, 1979.<\/p>\n
Chaucer, Geoffrey.\u00a0The Canterbury Tales<\/i>. Accessed at<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/22120\/22120-8.txt<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
Copetas, Craig. \u2018Beat Godfather meets Glitter Mainman: Bowie meets Burroughs,\u2019 originally printed in\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>, February 28, 1974. Accessed at<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.teenagewildlife.com\/Appearances\/Press\/1974\/0228\/rsinterview<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. \u2018The Metaphysical Poets,\u2019 in the\u00a0Times Literary Supplement<\/i>, October 20, 1921.<\/p>\n
\u2015\u00a0On Poetry and Poets<\/i>. London: Faber, 1957.<\/p>\n
\u2015 \u2018Ulysses<\/i>, Order and Myth,\u2019\u00a0The Dial<\/i>, LXXV (November 1923), 481-3<\/p>\n
\u2015\u00a0Collected Poems, 1909-1962<\/i>. London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1974.<\/p>\n
\u2015\u00a0The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism<\/i>. London: Faber, 1997.<\/p>\n
Fussell, Paul.\u00a0The Great War and Modern Memory<\/i>. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.<\/p>\n
Kermode, Frank. \u2018Bearing Eliot\u2019s Reality,\u2019 in\u00a0The Guardian<\/i>, Thursday 27 September 1984. Accessed at\u00a0http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/1984\/sep\/27\/biography.peterackroyd<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
May, John. \u2018Meeting with Burroughs at the Chelsea\u2019, accessed at<\/p>\n
http:\/\/hqinfo.blogspot.com\/2005\/06\/meeting-with-burroughs-at-chelsea.html<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
Manzoor, Sarfraz. \u20181978, the Year Rock Found the Power to Unite,\u2019 in\u00a0The Guardian<\/i>, Sunday 20 April 2008, quoting Bowie from\u00a0Playboy<\/i>, September 1976. Accessed at\u00a0http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/music\/2008\/apr\/20\/popandrock.race<\/a>\u00a0on 03-01-2009.<\/p>\n
Miller, James Edwin.\u00a0T. S. Eliot<\/i>. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 2005.<\/p>\n
Pater, Walter.\u00a0The Renaissance<\/i>. Adam Phillips, ed. Oxford: Oxford World\u2019s Classics, 1998.<\/p>\n
Payne, Stanley G.\u00a0The History of Fascism<\/i>. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.<\/p>\n
Pound, Ezra.\u00a0The Literary essays of Ezra Pound<\/i>, T.S. Eliot ed. London: Faber and Faber, 1954.<\/p>\n
Seabrook, Thomas Jerome.\u00a0Bowie in Berlin: A New Career In a New Town<\/i>. London: Jawbone Press, 2008.<\/p>\n
Schwartz, Robert L.\u00a0Broken Images: A Study of the Waste Land<\/i>. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1988.<\/p>\n
Wickeln, Hugo.\u00a0Low<\/i>. New York and London: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2005.<\/p>\n
Winn, James Anderson.\u00a0Unsuspected Eloquence: a history of the relations between poetry and music<\/i>. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1981.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
 <\/p>\n
‘Thought-tormented Music’: David Bowie’s Low and T.S. Eliot<\/a>.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
Related articles<\/h6>\n