A Wasteland Companion/M. Ward

 

"April is the cruellest month," according to the first line of T.S. Eliot's 1922 poem The Waste Land, but that's when M. Ward of She & Him chose to release his new solo album A Wasteland Companion. While it would be a stretch to say that the album was inspired by Eliot's poem, Ward says Eliot wasn't far from his mind. "I'm a huge fan of T.S. Eliot," Ward told Austinist, "and I probably first heard of that 'wasteland' idea reading T.S. Eliot in high school; to me, it's a pretty useful term, because it can be applied to someone or something in many different situations."

Ward recently told the New York Times that in addition to Eliot, his favorite writers include Virgil, Homer, and Dante. "I’ve been reading The Inferno for a long time," he says. "I’m a huge fan of that book."

For more music influenced by The Waste Land and other works by T.S. Eliot, check out these previous posts.