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One of the apt ways in which the legacy of ''The Waste Land'' has lived on has been through the medium of music. T.S. Eliot once remarked that ''The Waste Land'' was merely "rhythmical grumblings." While it arguably has many qualities that take it beyond sheer "rhythmical grumblings," many a songwriter has found a connection with T.S. Eliot's rhythmic, piecemeal style of poetry. ''The Waste Land'' has invited artists to, in the words of Eliot, "communicate" with poetry before "it's understood."

===Pop Music and ''The Waste Land''===

*The influential American singer-songwriter, artist, and writer '''Bob Dylan''', influenced by Eliot's lines as well as Eliot's style, released the eleven minute song, "Desolation Row" not long after T.S. Eliot's death. The song, filled with allusions and borrowed "broken images" has a modern, mosaic style reminiscent of Eliot's ''The Waste Land.''

*The popular English folk-punk singer '''Frank Turner''' in an interview found in the "Perspectives" section of ''The Waste Land'' App spoke on Eliot's influence on his song writing: " I wasn't a poetry lover until I met Eliot... I hadn't grasped how devastating poetry could be until I came across Eliot... Reading Eliot gave me a kind of sense of ambition in what one could achieve through words."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each of these covers is pretty different, but some of them have a common theme; a barren landscape. Even though the poem is titled ''The Waste Land'', is this an appropriate rendering of the poem? Certainly everyone will have their opinion on this, and I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong answer, but I don't think a picture of deserted wilderness is exactly relevant to this poem. In my reading, I found ''The Waste Land'' to be about people and their interactions with each other. I don't think these landscapes reflect that part of the poem. It has been suggested that Eliot is making a point to say that we need to be generous again and rediscover our empathy; these covers do not reflect that part of the poem. They do, however, accurately reflect the aftermath of a war-torn land. War brings devastation and ravages the land, leaving it scorched, but as the poem says, the land will breed lilacs out of the dead ground again, even after the terrible fighting. These covers depict the first part of that cycle, but not the rebirth and struggle afterwards. ''The Waste Land'' is about combining the past and the future, mixing ancient and modern, but these covers only show one side of that.