Anyone who plays modern rock guitar must pay some kind of homage to Jimi Hendrix. One way to celebrate Jimi Hendrix’s 70th birthday is to listen to his haunting version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
Dylan wrote the song while recouperating after a motorcycle accident. The song is based on Isaiah Chapter 21, verses 5-9:
Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield./For thus hath (God) said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth./And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed./…And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground
Hendrix captured the apocalyptic feel of the passage perfectly.
To listen to Hendrix’s cover of All Along the Watchtower, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY
(I am grateful to Sid Hall who told me the story behind the song many years ago)