Lyrics: All Along The Watchtower

'All Along The Watchtower' was written and originally performed by Bob Dylan but more familiar versions are those by Jimi Hendrix and U2. I first heard the U2 version when I was fifteen years old. I loved the song but the lyrics always mystified me. They are sparse and have very little detail..., to the extent that I thought that there must be verses missing.

Roll on nineteen years. I am back from a holiday in Tenerife; a holiday that has really challenged the way I live my life and think about the world.

One of the things I lacked on Holiday was access to my music collection, so on Sunday I had an opportunity to put on some music and get a good dose. There is little I like more than laying back on my bed, blasting some music and pondering the meaning of life. I hadn't listened to Hendrix in a while and thought this might do the trick.

When Hendrix's version of 'All Along The Watchtower' came on, the experiences I had on holiday started to click with the lyrics and it all started to make sense.

First, I met lots of intelligent people working out there who did not want to be stuck back home in the rat race. This may surprise some people, for the common image of typical Spanish holiday resort is of idiots abroad who want nothing more than to drink and fornicate. While this element did exist, some people have to be given more credit.

Second, since I originally graduated back in 2000, I have been in two minds. Sometimes I wanted the security of a job. At other times, especially when things were really bad - I wanted to escape this. I have been to London (which is still highly recommended), went back to university to study for a MA and struggled to find a graduate level job. What I discovered is that none of this really matters. I have been half fooling myself for far too long.

The first verse hits the spot well:

"There must be somewhere out here, said the joker to the thief.
There is too much confusion. I can't get no relief.
Businessman they drink my wine. Ploughman dig my earth.
And all along the line, no one knows what it is worth."

This sums up so much how I have been feeling. There is the confusion and lack of direction, the disorientation and the loss of real value. The archetypical characters of the joker and the thief are those who live on the outside of society and so can look in with a critical eye.

Then the second verse:

"No need to get excited. The thief he kindly spoke.
There are many among us, who feel that life is but a joke.
but you and I we've been through that.
And that is not our fate. So let us not talk falsely now.
The hour is getting late."

This verse is utterly brilliant. These two characters you would not normally expect to have access to 'truth' are those of the joker and the thief. The joker is someone who normally challenges everyday reality and most would assume that he tells an untruth to amuse 'normal' people. When really, the joker is in earnest - he does not see that life is a joke. The thief transgresses normal reality by not adhering to the normal values of society. This transgression brings into question the 'laws of the land.'

Then finally the conclusion:

"All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too.
Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat did growl,
two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl."

The final insight: the societal values that most of us hold dear also preserve vested interests. The notion of women coming and going may relate in part of Celine's 'Journey To The End of The Night', where a similar scene is painted. (I have read somewhere that Dylan was a big fan.)

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! What have I been doing with my life? Time to push on with the book and get it finished in the next two weeks. Whether it gets published or not..., it is time to give myself more time.

U2 Friday 24th July: The post gig hangover

Ten years is a long time. It has been about that long since I last watched U2 play live. Having witnessed this gig, I have discovered just how much I have changed in that time.

There is no doubt that U2 put on a great show. There stage is circular in shape and this allows the band members to get closer to the audience. This is one of the things that U2 do best- work their audience up into a frenzy. The lights, the music and the atmosphere created is spectacular.

What I found cringe worthy was Bono's political pronouncements. Everything is cast in black and white.

It is true that there is a clear distinction between right and wrong sometimes but these cases are exceptionally rare. I would also hold that everyone- as a citizen of the world- should be able to express an opinion. Bono is just in a very privledge position to do so. When he utters a few words thousands will listen.

So I am not going to go down the line and say that Bono should keep politics and music separate. What I would say is that he is more circumspect and think about what effect his utterances might have, without getting carried away too much.

On the Friday night he made a few comments about the 1916 rising, which probably alientated a small section of the crowd. Irish history is an extremely contentious area still. Bono puffed with pride at being home and rightly felt honoured to have such a welcome back in his home city. Why he felt it necessary to then align the rising with his pride I am not quite sure.

U2 and Bono have an amazing reach- and their music has connected with people from both main traditions on the island. He was walking on a tightrope here though. In the words of Bono himself, "I should be an acrobat, to talk like this and act like that."

Ten years ago my response would have been different. I would have said that I did not agree with him but supported his right to say it. Now I say, you have a right to express an opinion but first put a bit more thought into it.

U2 Live in Dublin 24th July 2009

This Friday I will travel down to Dublin to watch U2 Live. It has been over tens years since I last seen them play. That was during the Pop-mart Tour, which involved the band emerging from a giant lemon come space ship- really bizarre but fantastic stuff!

After the Pop Album, I thought the band lost their way a bit. I am all for experimenting and trying new things but I felt that the band lost their consistency. Still, there have been some great songs written since then and their last release, No Line On The Horizon, is their most consistent album since Zooropa. It takes a while to get into, but it is a subtle album. The songs have many textures that hint at different influences from Led Zepplin to Arabic chanting. (See especially the vocal phrasing on Breathe.)

I don't really know what to expect. That is part of the beauty of going to a U2 concert. I have seen some of the other 'biggest bands in the world'- but nothing surpasses the stage show at a U2 gig.

I have been told that this will be something spectacular and been advised to check out You Tube. I'd rather wait and see. I want to be blown away.

Art and artifical highs.

There has been a long association with great art and illicit drug taking. One can think about the work of Nostadamus. While Nostradamus was having his 'visions,' he was also experimenting with mind altering drugs. More recently, Aldous Huxley famously experimented with mescaline while writing 'The Doors of Perception.'(A title taken from William Blake.) This work influenced a whole generation of musicians- most notably The Doors. Within sixties American counter culture, Timothy Leary's phrase, "Tune in, turn on and drop out!" epitmoised an attitude to the world that indivualized life experience. The pain and the horror of the larger world became cut off in a desire to fulil a semi-articulated dream. At bottom, what this amounted to was the insistance that one lives and takes ownership of one's own life.

Apart from the moral or legal implications of such activity, there is a correspondence to drug taking and the creation of art. This is not to say that great art can only be made under such influence. Some of the greatest novels have no doubt be written with a sober mind. Rather, there is a movement within the individual towards perfection in both cases, a craving to catch sight of beauty for even just a moment. There may also be associations here within a religious context. Lot's wife was warned not to turn back while fleeing from the city of Sodom.

The downside to this is that drug taking creates artifically what great art achieves through effort, dedication and craft. I am reminded of the U2 song, "I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For." The following line sums up nicely the dangers of the artifical high. "I held the hand of the Devil. It was warm in the night. I was cold as stone."

To perfect also means to disregard. It means to forget. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt remembering whence she came.

The creative urge and the desire to learn.

I started writing poetry when I was sixteen after watching the U2 film 'Rattle and Hum'. There is a point in the film when it changes from black and white into colour. The stage backdrop turns a blood red and Bono starts giving it loads! I remember rushing up to my bedroom afterwards, finding a scrap of paper and starting to compose.

The funny thing was that I didn't identify with myself in the poem. It was a deeply personal verse but I didn't sense I was feeling the way the poem described. It is true that I was not use to 'expressing my feelings.' That had only become cool a few moments before. But more important than the poem was the window this opened up for me.

Until I was sixteen, I didn't read anything unless I had to. I took no interest in things that were not of my immediate concern. My school grades probably reflected this. I lacked curiousity. That year, however, I started visiting a secondhand book shop in my home town. I would at random pick up things that I knew very little about- whether that be Italian poets or a biography of a London school in the early eighties.

This all delighted me and was worth a hundred years of compulsory schooling.

I was smitten. I had caught the bug. This desire to learn is worth more than intelligence or riches. It is the factor that makes sure that things get done. It also teaches moderation for one begins to learn that the world is a wonderful and strange place. Before I had lived within myself, cut off from so many possibilities. This had changed all of a sudden. I began to look outwards.