In order to get publicity for his new album Paul Simon has released the original TEFL version of The Boxer, written when he briefly added his name to those of Wilfred Owens and James Joyce on the list of Berlitz TEFLers who later became famous.

“I am just a poor boy

Though my story’s seldom told

I have squandered my inheritance

For a pocket full of mumbles such are grammar rules

All lies and jests

Still a CELToid elicits what he wants to

And disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family

I was no more than a boy

In the company of scary alky teachers

In the quiet of the “conversation classroom”, forming pairs

Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters

Where the TEFL teachers go

Looking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie …

Asking only enough to live on

I come looking for a job

But I get no decent offers,

Just a come-on from Berlitz on Seventh Avenue

I do declare, there were times when I was so skint

I gave some “private classes” there

Lie la lie …

Then I’m laying out my least rumpled shirt

And wishing I was gone

Going home

Where trying to explain phrasal verbs isn’t bleeding me

Bleeding me, going home

In the classroom stands a TEFLer

A conversation partner by his “trade”

And he carries the reminders

Of ev’ry DoS that ever sacked him

Or cut his hours till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

“I am leaving, I am leaving”

But the TEFLer still remains “

I’m sure there must be TEFL versions of Only Living Boy in New York (Only Clean Teacher in Bangkok?) and Homeward Bound somewhere too…