There must be some kind of way outta here
said the joker to the thief
there’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief…
– Songwriter: Bob Dylan
CALL IT a prelude to what’s happening some 51 years ago this weekend, maybe a foreplay.
But it’s not about the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival although Jimi Hendrix was there and his performance was iconic to the festival; the artist who wrote our feature song was not.
So we’re going to talk about music written by a Nobel Prize winner and performed by a dead artist and yes, pun was not intended.
Most of these so-called millennials and most people probably are not familiar with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, let alone their music, and could not tell the difference between them and a fig tree.
However, moi is certain that those who fancy themselves writers are quite familiar with Bob Dylan as he is the 2016 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature. We can forgive them if they’re not knowledgeable with his music.
Jimi Hendrix is another story though. If Woodstock does not ring a bell then most probably neither does Jimi Hendrix as both are synonymous with each other.
And we’re here to talk about one of his songs written by Bob Dylan who incidentally won the Grammy Award before he won the Nobel Prize – meaning he is a singer/songwriter. But we’ll talk about him as that in another column.
From that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
“All Along the Watchtower” is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan’s subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan’s live albums.
Covered by numerous artists in various genres, “All Along the Watchtower” is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan’s original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968 and was ranked 47th in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
“The unusual structure of the narrative was remarked on by English Literature professor Christopher Ricks, who commented that “All Along the Watchtower” is an example of Dylan’s audacity at manipulating chronological time: “At the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, and as if the myth began again.”
And from songfacts.com:
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience began to record their version of Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ on Jan. 21, 1968 at Olympic Studios in London. According to engineer Andy Johns, Jimi Hendrix had been given a tape of Dylan’s recording by publicist Michael Goldstein, who worked for Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. ‘(Hendrix) came in with these Dylan tapes and we all heard them for the first time in the studio,’ recalled Johns.”
Bob Dylan’s reaction to Jimi Hendrix’s version of his song:
“It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent; he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn’t think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using.”
And from the late Jimi Hendrix:
“All those people who don’t like Bob Dylan’s songs should read his lyrics. They are filled with the joys and sadness of life. I am as Dylan, none of us can sing normally. Sometimes, I play Dylan’s songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. I have the feeling that Watchtower is a song I could have come up with, but I’m sure I would never have finished it.”
The song is what one expects of Bob Dylan – lyrical, audacious, almost as a poem yet it is a song. There is no doubt that his original version stands out but I have to say this: Jimi Hendrix’s version and treatment with his signature electric guitar riffs, his voice and singing style make it an almost blues number as compared to Bob Dylan’s folksy acoustic style.
On a personal note, I prefer Jimi Hendrix’s version without taking anything away from Bob Dylan’s.
And I leave you with these lines from “All Along the Watchtower”:
There are many here among us
who feel that life is but a joke
so let us stop talkin’ falsely now
the hour’ s getting late…/PN
