All Along The Watchtower

You may or may not know that my appreciation of and love for the recent Battlestar Galactica television series runs deep and is profound. The soul, wit, charm, intelligence, profundity and relevance of the show was and is nearly without peer in American television history. I do not feel that statement is hyperbole and welcome others to disagree with my assessment.

For those of you familiar with the show you are quite familiar with the presence of the Bob Dylan-created song "All Along The Watchtower" and its relevance and significance to the show down its stretch run starting at the end of Season Three and throughout Season Four (its final season). I will not explain here what the relevance to and significance of this song is in the show as either you already know or you need to watch the series anyway and in due time you will know.

Regardless, I offer you here the opportunity to study the lyrics first and then listen to and compare the two greatest versions of the song as performed by Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix to that of the version arranged by Bear McCreary and sung by his brother Brenden for Battlestar Galactica which is my favorite version of the song truth be told. On a side-note: McCreary does the musical score for my favorite current television series, The Walking Dead.

Below are the lyrics followed in order by the Brenden arrangement and performance followed by those of Jimi Hendrix (whose studio version appears in the epilogue of the series' finale Daybreak) and Bob Dylan in that order. Please feel free to comment on your preference and analysis of the three versions and the power of the song itself. 

"All Along The Watchtower"

"There must be some 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.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Source: http://www.azlyrics.com