(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Guest Song of the Day: All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix

I asked R at work what her favorite song was, and she said American Bad Ass by Kid Rock. Lucky for me that song can't be found on iTunes, otherwise I would have had to download it, per my own rules for this week of "guest" songs of the day. I don't think I would have liked it much, but who knows? When I asked her for a second pick, she said Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood. That song is available on iTunes, in fact it's her most popular download, but since I already featured her once this week I decided to ask someone else.

D is as old-school rock and roll as they come, and so it was no surprise that he picked a tried and true hard rock gem like Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower, or that he really hasn't listened to any new music recently. But here's a study in contrasts: the younger people that I asked all had relatively recent hits that they named, but all three of them had to think pretty hard to decide not only what was a song they really liked, but also what was the title and who was the artist. I gather from this that they aren't really into music as completely as I am. (Well, after all, most people aren't, heh.) D, on the other hand, doesn't really listen to much new music, but that doesn't mean he isn't deeply into the music that he likes. He named All Along the Watchtower almost instantly, and when I asked, "The Hendrix version?" he replied, "That's the only one!" D is in fact a guitar player who owns several electric guitars and can be found looking up tablatures for songs that he likes on the internet, so he's very into music, just not very much that is modern.

So. This leads me to reccomend as an iTunes download a song that most people have heard before and if you like it, you very likely may alredy own it. But there it is.

Does Jimi Hendrix have a web site? Indeed he does. Does he have a myspace account?. Yes, of course, with many thousands of friends linking to it and leaving him messages. Can you find All Along the Watchtower on Youtube? Do you really have to ask?

I have many version of this song, which has been covered many, many times. I have the original Dylan version from his album John Wesley Harding. I have the Hendrix version, from Electric Ladyland. I have the U2 version. My favorite version is probaly from the Freedom and Rain tour by June Tabor and the Oyster Band. I always wished they'd done another album together.

Hendrix's version is considered definitive, and even Dylan has subsequently played it live in a style more like Hendrix's version than like his own original version.