The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)

General CommentIts funny how the joker is complaining to the thief that things are being stolen from him (businessmen drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth) and the thief is complaining to the joker that people don't take life seriously and complains about 'speaking falsely'. The two characters pretty much complain to each other about each other.

Did no one else realize this connection?
Thoughts?

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  @tragicallybob
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  Any thoughts on the choice of this song in Battlestar Galactica? For some reason it fits so well. There is certainly stg to this song that evokes an idea of layered perspectives and realities, blurred boundaries between right and wrong, and people being at the mercy of their circumstances. Like there is no right and wrong, just different perspectives. There is also a sense of 'chinatown', as in sometime you just don't know or should you bother to find out or worry about things, as the details of life are much too complex to understand. Maybe cylons are not that bad after all...

  Flagged mariaralucaon March 21, 2009  

General Commentthis is my all time favorite jimi song, it just flows ya know? the lyrics are great too.

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  @UseYourIllusion

General Commentits about two real life people with human sin who have lived the life who toghether make the commitment to rise above their earthly limitations and watch out for, guard and love the truth.

amen

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  @Solo
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  Wait that was a prayer?

  Flag MusicNeedsPoetryon January 03, 2010  

  +1

  @Solo I think that the joker in this song is actually Jesus because in the first stanza the joker refers to the wine and earth as "my wine" and "my earth" which is why I think that the joker is Jesus because according to the bible he turned the water into wine and he owns the earth.

  Flag Hafidzarrazyon June 26, 2017  

General CommentBob Dylan, typically, tends to be outstandingly cryptic in his lyrics. while others are just what they are.

i tend to believe this song was connotated with Vietnam because it was going on at the time this song was released (originally on Dylan's LP "John Wesley Harding" in 1967)

but what i actually believe the song is a story about society: the upper class being the Princes,

the Joker and pregnant women being the Middle class and the Thief representing the Lower Class.

i always thought the Thief's line when speaking to the Joker was a very peculiar one: "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke."

the Thief is telling the Joker, of all people, that nobody takes life seriously. was it a hint from the Thief to the Joker to stop screwing around? and make plans for escape?

i'm still trying to figure that one out...

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  @roger wilco
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  you're still trying to figure it out because it doesn't work. those are the wrong figures in your metaphor.

  Flag kanzeion May 04, 2013  

General CommentHow could any of you people think this song is about something so superficial and obvious as the Viet Nam War?! The reasoning put forward by CoNjOutsidersLsSm is so amazingly pathetic. It was written by Bob Dylan, the greatest artist, songwriter and lyricist that ever lived. He was such an inventer. Making a song about the Viet Nam war is more like jumping on the bandwagon. To think that Dylan would make a song so easily interpretable is plain stupid. Ok Hendrix may have turned it into an anthem for the anti-war movement, but it was certainly not Dylan's idea. If you knew anything about the time at which Dylan wrote it you would know that his time of great political comment was already over. And anyway when he did make statements they weren't so obvious or popular. I go with a mix between the Biblical context and the reason on the link given by the 6th Sadistic Sniper. It does truly make more sense. All through Dylan's career he made songs about Biblical and historical ideas. The Nam idea is way off. Even on the "John Wesley Harding" LP Dylan, in the titlae track and on most other tracks is narrating and its all historical. No way is it Nam, hes not that obvios.

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  @SouthHibbing

General Commentso what you're all basically saying is that this song is about phildelphia eagles, defending his lyrics, and albertus being a prick. thanks, it's all so clear. woohoo. I'm glad i wasted my life reading that.

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  @joAKAmegalomaniac

General CommentI've noticed a large pattern on this site, in regards to common themes that people tend to think songs fit into. The big obvious one is religion, the other being the big social context of whatever period the song was written in. For the 60's and 70's every song is apparently about Vietnam, and for our current decade they're all reputably about 9-11, George Bush or the Iraq war. For some, this may be completely true and absolutely the case, but I have a hard time believing 90% of all songs ever made are either about Jebus or the then current/recent war.

With a song like this I can see how it would be easy to think its about Vietnam. Hell, until I really looked at the lyrics I would have agreed with you. The first four lines ("There must be some kind of way out of here", ext.) sound a lot like a statement on Vietnam. But if you get locked into that train of thought right off the bat then you're going to have to really stretch the rest of the lyrics to make it fit.

Granted, I don't know what its about. And hell, it might be about religion or Vietnam. But if you're gonna make the claim, you need more than one or two lines that sorta-kinda-maybe-could-be about your theory. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, and no offense is meant, but please try not to jump to conclusions so damn fast.

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  @TheGassyGunslinger
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  Additionally, I don't see why it (or most songs even) necessarily has to have another level of symbols and/or meaning. I think even taken at face value, taken literally, this is the start of one hell of an intriguing story.

  Flag TheGassyGunslingeron November 14, 2010  

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  As much as I want to agree about Jesus-freaks, I can't. All of the songs on Dylan's "John Wesley Harding" album are biblical.
  
  Whether Jimi wanted his version to be interpreted differently, I will never know, personally I find it unlikely, although Jimi did "...dedicate this song to all the soldiers in Vietnam" in his live performance in 1970.

  Flag An7hraXon July 19, 2011  

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  See, this is what I'm talking about. You have evidence to suggest that this might be biblical, or in Hendrix's interpretation, about Vietnam. This may be one of those cases where it actually is about Jebus. But the point is you didn't reach that conclusion though some incredibly vague interpretation of lyrics.

  Flag TheGassyGunslingeron August 16, 2011  

General CommentI know that Jimi was the one who made this song a BIG one, but I prefer the Original and about the two last lines in first stanza, I can't say clearly what Jimi says but I think we must accept the dylan's part ("None of them along the line, Know what any of it worth"), because he wrote the song and knew why it must be like this

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  @Paymaan
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  "Know what any of it IS worth"
  I'm not a good songwriter : )

  Flag Paymaanon December 04, 2013  

General CommentIts about Vietnam

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  @Temujin
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  "the joker" is commonly knows as Jesus in terriot cards. Jesus actually says "there must be some other way" to God, hence bob dylans' "there must be some kind of way out of here"
  
  as for the watchtower... matthew 21:33 "listin to another parable: there was a land owner who planted a VINEYARD (wine). He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a WATCHTOWER" also to run a vineyard, you must have PLOWMEN.
  
  "this is not our fate" Jesus explains that today the theif will be with him in paradice and the theif agrees. "the hour is getting late" they knew they were going to die very soon.
  
  women were the ones moourning during jesus's death at the cross. "while all the women came and went"
  
  as one can see there is more actual HARD evidence to teh fact that it is about Jesus then vietnam. only evidence for vietnam was that there is a watchtower which is used in battle, and bob dylan's facination with the war... if you ask me... thats not enough evidence
  
  

  Flag ledzepp2112on March 22, 2009  

General CommentIts about finding meaning in life in Vietnam

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  @NattyDread
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  How????

  Flag MayChildon May 25, 2010