‘All Along the Watchtower’ is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding (1967). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. The song's lyrics, which in its original version contain twelve lines, feature a conversation between a joker and a thief. The song has been subject to various interpretations; some reviewers have noted that it echoes lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9. Dylan has released several different live performances, and versions of the song are included on some of his subsequent greatest hits compilations.
Covered by numerous artists, ‘All Along the Watchtower’ is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded with the Jimi Hendrix Experience for their third studio album, Electric Ladyland (1968). The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968, received a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001, and was ranked 48th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 (40th in the 2021 version).
Hendrix was musically attracted to Dylan's songs several times in his career, according to engineer Andy Johns. Hendrix had been given a reel-to-reel tape of Dylan's unreleased recordings at that point by publicist Michael Goldstein, who worked for Dylan's manager Grossman. "(Hendrix) came in with these Dylan tapes and we all heard them for the first time in the studio", recalled Johns. He initially intended to record ‘I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine’ but changed this to ‘All Along the Watchtower’. Stubbs writes that this was the second of Dylan's songs Hendrix had adapted to his own style, the first being ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ played earlier at Monterey. This was Hendrix' only Top 40 hit in the US, where his influence far outpaced his popularity. He charted a few times in the UK, where he rose to fame before making a name for himself in America.
Hendrix said: "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."
Labels – Reprise (US), Track (UK)
Songwriter – Bob Dylan
Producer – Jimi Hendrix
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]"There must be some kind of way out of here"
Said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody offered his word," hey
[Guitar Solo]
[Verse 2]
"No reason to get excited"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke, but, uh
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us stop talking falsely now
The hour's getting late, hey
[Guitar Solo]
[Interlude]
Hey
[Verse 3]
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too, well, uh
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl, hey
[Outro]
All along the watchtower
Beware!
All along the watchtower