All Along The Watchtower Analysis

Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s, “All Along the Watchtower,” was a greater success than the original begging the question: since the songs are lyrically identical, which musical techniques boosted Hendrix’s cover to the top charts? Among these techniques are choice of instrument and tonal variations between the two songs. Hendrix preserves and arguably adds on to the original meaning behind the song through these variations in musical technique.
Hendrix faced the risk of appearing inauthentic to his fans; taking the song of another man and unsuccessfully making it his own. The covers explored in the America in the 60’s Cluster usually are years, even decades apart, leading one to believe that the evolution of music influenced the cover artist, not the other way around. Hendrix transformed a relatively unpopular song into a liberating message of self-expression independently, and contributed to the liberal zeitgeist of the 1960’s.
The usual reason behind a cover is an artist’s desire to benefit from …show more content…
However, Hendrix’s “freak out” moments are characterized through the use of an electric guitar, in comparison to Dylan’s harmonica, transforming the instrumentals from ‘folksy’ into a more modern rock ‘n roll sound. The electric guitar’s momentarily erratic bursts of energy mimic the psychedelic effects of recreational substance use, more specifically ‘acid.’ Hendrix draws out the instrumentals much more than Dylan, going on for over a minute after the seventh line of the song, disturbing the song’s otherwise near-monotonous tempo and transitioning into an innovative use of sound unique to the 1960’s. The euphoric psychedelic quality of the cover’s second and third instrumentals express an imagery of freedom the original failed to fully express through the earthy yet limited sounds of the acoustic