Of all the songwriters in rock history, few have had their work analyzed as deeply as Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan. And out of all of the songs in Dylan’s massive catalog, “All Along the Watchtower” has to be among the most dissected, by fans and critics alike. It’s also been covered by dozens of artists, including one legendary guitarist who took the song to a whole different level.
Recorded on Nov. 6, 1967, and released on Dylan’s album John Wesley Harding, the original version of “All Along the Watchtower” had twelve lines, “making it more akin to a truncated sonnet than a song,” as music critic Dan Einav wrote for the Financial Times.
“Opening with a harmonica solo, and a first verse which introduces us to two characters, the track initially has all the hallmarks of a sprawling ballad in the vein of ‘Desolation Row,’ Einav wrote, adding, “filled with medieval iconography of watchtowers, jesters and princes, we can imagine the story unfolding on a Bayeux-style tapestry.”
So what is “All Along the Watchtower” actually about? Fans and critics alike are still arguing about that one. Some say it’s about the music business, some say it’s about religion. The lyrics are cryptic enough to welcome various interpretations. Just don’t count on Dylan himself to explain.
In an interview with the music magazine Sing Out! in October 1968, Dylan discussed the songs on John Wesley Harding in his typically ambiguous way.
“I haven’t fulfilled the balladeer’s job,” he said, according to Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews. “A balladeer can sit down and sing three songs for an hour and a half…it can all unfold to you…[For example, as] with the third verse of ‘The Wicked Messenger,’ which opens it up, and then the time schedule takes a jump and soon the song becomes wider…The same thing is true of the song ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ which opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order.”
The most notable of the many “All Along the Watchtower” covers to be recorded over the years was, of course, the Jimi Hendrix version. Hendrix, who was a big fan of Dylan, made the song his own; more than that, some would argue that the Hendrix update turned out to be the definitive take.
In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” at #40 on their list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
As RS noted, the original “had just been released on Dylan’s John Wesley Harding when Hendrix began tinkering with the song at Electric Lady Studios in New York on January 21st, 1968.” [Ed. note: This actually took place at Olympic Studios in London.]
“Using the line ‘And the wind began to howl’ as a springboard, Hendrix constructed a tumultuous four-part solo that transformed Dylan’s concise foreboding into an electric hurricane,” RS continued. “Dylan acknowledged Hendrix’s masterstroke: Dylan’s subsequent versions of ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ including the treatment on his 1974 reunion tour with the Band and the live LP Before the Flood, emulated Hendrix’s cover.”
Related: Bob Dylan Called This Singer-Songwriter No. 1, but He Called Himself ‘No. Zero’
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