Bob Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower'
A comparison of recordings of Bob Dylan's "All along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix offers a vivid case study of what Samuel Floyd characterizes as "the complementary oppositions of African- and European-derived musical processes and events." The song itself draws together elements of ballad and blues traditions; and the two recordings treat this synthesis in very different ways even as they share the common ground of late 1960s rock. Dylan's is a spare, acoustic folk-rock rendition, while Hendrix's is an opulent electric spectacle whose sonic and syntactic conception unpacks the latent drama only suggested by the original. In the process, Hendrix offers an alternative answer to the song's existential dilemma implied in its lyrics
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Music included lyrics, beats, rhythms, and instruments. Literature, on the other hand, was strictly for poetry, ballads, letters, and stories. Never before had anyone considered the opportunity for song lyrics to be considered literature. People strongly thought of the two as being very different categories. With both literature and music being respected in their own unique way, Bob Dylan came along to add a new element. During his time, Dylan was known for his touching songs, however, many did not consider him a poet. This thought was false. Dylan was a poet first aIn meetings, Bob Dylan had raised an interesting question. “Is it possible for a performance art to be considered literature (Marcus 119)?” Bob Dylan’s music was unique; he was able to intertwine his lyrics through the life he had lived and through the events of the world around him. Some events in Dylan’s life were the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War. Dylan would come to be known for playing at concerts that were protesting the war at hand. Many young adults would flock to hear the man who knew just how to express the words. The words that expressed his deeper most feeling were the same words that comforted these many young adults by the mass. With people feeling the same sorrows as Dylan himself, it was his words that hypnotized the viewers, not the rhythm behind them. Therefore, the music itself had little significance. It was all in the words. “I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a point where I couldn’t sing anything. I had to write what I wanted to sing cos’ what I wanted to sing, nobody else was writing (Spitz 407). Dylan shared this feeling with others everywhere. It is possible that him writing songs was the only way to say what needed to be
Music included lyrics, beats, rhythms, and instruments. Literature, on the other hand, was strictly for poetry, ballads, letters, and stories. Never before had anyone considered the opportunity for song lyrics to be considered literature. People strongly thought of the two as being very different categories. With both literature and music being respected in their own unique way, Bob Dylan came along to add a new element. During his time, Dylan was known for his touching songs, however, many did not consider him a poet. This thought was false. Dylan was a poet first aIn meetings, Bob Dylan had raised an interesting question. “Is it possible for a performance art to be considered literature (Marcus 119)?” Bob Dylan’s music was unique; he was able to intertwine his lyrics through the life he had lived and through the events of the world around him. Some events in Dylan’s life were the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War. Dylan would come to be known for playing at concerts that were protesting the war at hand. Many young adults would flock to hear the man who knew just how to express the words. The words that expressed his deeper most feeling were the same words that comforted these many young adults by the mass. With people feeling the same sorrows as Dylan himself, it was his words that hypnotized the viewers, not the rhythm behind them. Therefore, the music itself had little significance. It was all in the words. “I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a point where I couldn’t sing anything. I had to write what I wanted to sing cos’ what I wanted to sing, nobody else was writing (Spitz 407). Dylan shared this feeling with others everywhere. It is possible that him writing songs was the only way to say what needed to be