“All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix

song info

    “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix (official video) is a classic rock song. Bob Dylan, the composer/lyricist of the original version, was so impressed, that he has since used Jimi Hendrix’s arrangement in live performances.

    Commentary:
    “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. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.”—Bob Dylan

    “I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way… Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”—Bob Dylan

    “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. Thinking about Dylan, I often consider that I’d never be able to write the words he manages to come up with, but I’d like him to help me, because I have loads of songs I can’t finish. I just lay a few words on the paper, and I just can’t go forward. But now things are getting better, I’m a bit more self-confident.”—Jimi Hendrix

    Traffic guitarist Dave Mason talked to Jimi Hendrix at a party and discussed the then recent Bob Dylan release, John Wesley Harding, leading to the Jimi Hendrix recording of this song.

Translations courtesy of Apple and Google.