1002 : The hour is getting late….(Music 56 : All Along the watchtower by Bob Dylan/Jimi Hendrix/DMB)

Let me first clarify my stand on Dave Matthews Band. I have been listening to DMB for over 10 years now, and have always been very familiar with 40 odd of their popular numbers.

In the past 4 months have managed to lay my hands on their entire studio and live albums – which is a total of about 25 albums.

The end result is now I have all their songs, and for the popular numbers, I have as many as 12-15 versions of each of them. Like I have 8 different versions of crash…...and so on.

Clarification over.

I must have been hearing “All along the watchtower” for over 15 years now – the acidic edition of Jimi Hendrix, followed by Bob Dylan and then DMB.

The Jimi Hendrix version is acidic (as I already mentioned before), the Bob Dylan version is lame, the DMB version (standard live edition…they dont have it on a studio album, or so I believe ) is manically creative…..and then you now hear the extended live versions.

For example, I have one in which DMB plays it with Santana – a 13 minute edition – starts with a 3 minute slow prologue, then the song starts and proceeds slowly – until DM screams “No reason to get excited” – followed by a loud bass drum thump and an insane guitar riff – and then the next para starts, until DM reaches the line where he says “The hour is getting lateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”, the word “late” stretches for over 9 seconds and is followed by an explosion of sounds and guitar, and a completely uncontrolled crowd reaction.

If you like the song, there is no way you cannot get goose pimples when you listen to this line in this version(no matter how many times you have heard this before)…..makes you want to be there to hear it live.

After having heard this song from DMB, I struggle to hear the Dylan or the Hendrix version without thinking “how boringly creative”.

More history on the song at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Along_the_Watchtower

I found correct lyrics only at….http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/allalong.htm

All other sites have wrong lyrics. Have reproduced the lyrics below for easier reading.

"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 of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth"

"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 you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late"

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too
But outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl

 

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