The Watch Tower

Jim Hendrix could feel the song was important.

Beyond the words.

He remixed the song at least two dozen times.

Dylan himself said that Hendrix found new places in the song.

Beyond the words.

‘The spacing’ I believe is what Dylan said.

Dylan released the song in 1967. I was 17

Hendrix released his version in 1968.

I heard it for the first time as a freshmen in college, 1969.

I can easily find the memory of that first time. Sitting in my dorm room. Late, I mean late on a Friday night, a time when no one slept. My new three component stereo, the blue hues of the dials glowing in the dark room, the cold autumn pouring through the open window.

And then,

That pounding opening … the screaming riff ….. it broke my soul open ….

you can never forget it

Once you hear it.

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”

I sat up in my single bed, the cinder block wall next to me. My purple bed cover (that I had all four years). Outside people laughing and yelling. The campus vibrant and alive.

“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”

The words. Some of the lyrics I interpreted to fit my life at the time.

But it was the guitar. His guitar actually spoke as Hendrix sang.

I could feel the world was changing fast. Too fast. I was changing too fast.

Something about the song. The way he played. It was thrilling.

And I remember being frightened.

That portion of the song …where he takes you to another world…

You know that part …. only he could play it.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

The image of a watchtower filled my room.

Go find the Hendrix version. The guitar warning the world.

I swear his guitar had taken on the soul of the future and it was speaking.

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

I was never the same after that night. After listening to that guitar.

We all wonder when innocence disappeared for us? When the child was silenced?

It was like I aged that night.

The last time I aged like that it wasn’t music.

It was bullets.

I was 13 at the time of November 22nd

The world changed that day. I lost a piece of my childhood. I think safety left that day.

November 22, 1963

And, the second time in 1969, in a dorm room on an autumn night.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

What was I to be wary of? Watch for what?

October 8th 2024. A world was revealed that I didn’t know existed…

I mean know as in feel and be ripped wide open …

I don’t need to sleep anymore. Or, can’t sleep. Really sleep.

Wide awake in that Watch Tower.

Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl.

Hendrix is dead. I think he understood too much. Felt too much.

Knew too much.

Now I can grasp what he was playing. It actually hurts.

And the two riders… we all have our interpretations

For me … The Climate Crisis and Forever Wars

The guitar sounds insane at points … the [;aces in space he attained…

The pain of the people in Gaza. Lebanon. Ukraine.

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”