A Musical Message to My Son

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by Griff

Go with Watchtower. Dylan/Hendrix combo covers a lot of ground.

Watchtower is one of those songs where the songwriter (Dylan) didn't really understand the song he wrote, then another performer comes along and does it justice.

As my shaman friend puts it, The creative person's job is to be a clear conduit for the creative spirit, not coloring or filtering the transmission with their own "stuff" (for want of another term.) Dylan was the clear conduit for the song's writing, and Hendrix was the clear conduit for its performance.

Another example off the top of my head is Richard Thompson's Vincent Black Lightning. The Del McCoury band performs it so much better than Thompson.

Again, this phenomenon of the cover being more massive that the original deserves its own compilation.