0:01

A Vibroslap is an excellently named percussion

0:03

instrument that involves a wooden ball suspended

0:05

above a wood block by a metal

0:07

tension bar. It makes

0:10

a terrific sound, kind of like a mega

0:12

rattlesnake, which, yeah, I mean Vibroslap. It's a

0:14

pretty accurate name. Welcome

0:23

to Strong Songs, a podcast about

0:25

music. I'm your host, Kirk Hamilton,

0:27

and I'm so glad you've joined

0:29

me to talk about music made

0:32

with Vibroslaps, Vibrotones, Vibraphones, and just

0:34

plain old Vibrotoe. Strong

0:37

Songs is a fully independent show. It is written,

0:39

researched, and recorded by me, and the only reason

0:41

I'm able to put in so much time is

0:44

thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you

0:46

like Strong Songs, I do hope you'll consider becoming

0:48

a patron. There are links for that and for

0:50

making a one-time donation down in the show notes.

0:53

On this episode, it's time for another edition

0:55

of Strong Covers. This time we're talking about

0:57

a pair of cover recordings that, while great

1:00

on their own, also give a new understanding

1:02

of and appreciation for the original. I'm excited

1:04

to dig in, so let's clip on the

1:06

capo, tune down the strat, and get to it. The

1:29

cover songs have long been a good way to

1:31

get a sense of a given musician or a

1:33

given band. Seeing what they

1:35

do with someone else's song is a great

1:37

way to understand the qualities that make them

1:39

distinct as artists. On the flip

1:41

side, a cover recording can also give

1:44

an interesting new perspective on the original

1:46

song and in some cases, a cover's

1:48

most essential function is to remind listeners

1:50

of what a great song it was

1:52

to begin with. Some covers

1:54

make subtle changes, some covers are less

1:56

subtle, but they're always instructive in some

1:59

way. I've always liked talking

2:01

about strong covers on strong songs

2:03

and it's time to do it

2:05

again with strong covers volume 3

2:12

The first volume of strong covers

2:14

recorded several years ago now took

2:16

on a number of the most

2:18

well-known and transformative covers around from

2:20

Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's

2:22

hallelujah to Aretha Franklin's cover of

2:24

Otis Redding's respect Volume

2:31

2 focused on the Beatles one of the most

2:33

covered bands in history Breaking down

2:35

covers of some of their most well-known

2:37

songs by artists like Earth Wind and

2:40

Fire Ray Charles and Bobby McCarron So

2:51

now it's time for volume 3 and this

2:54

time I'm gonna do something similar to

2:56

volume 1 that we're gonna go a

2:58

little more In depth this time We're

3:00

gonna focus on two covers each of

3:02

which took some essential element of the

3:04

original song and expanded it Changing the

3:06

musical and emotional proportions of the song

3:08

in some significant way and in the

3:10

process We're gonna spare some extra time

3:12

for the original recording and the song

3:14

itself to better enhance our Understanding of

3:17

just what the secondary artists accomplished with

3:19

their reinterpretation So let's

3:21

get right into it since there's always a lot

3:23

to cover in this kind of episode and it

3:25

never feels like there Is enough time the first

3:27

cover we're gonna be talking about is one of

3:29

the most famous cover recordings of all time One

3:32

that I've gotten no shortage of emails about in 1967

3:36

Bob Dylan released John Wesley

3:38

Harding an album that included

3:40

an evocative Lyrically daring song

3:43

called all along the watchtower

3:57

I can't get no relief It's

4:00

a remarkable song all on its own,

4:02

with lyrics that depict a portentous conversation

4:05

and an ending that's somehow perfect despite

4:07

hardly being an ending at all. Outside

4:11

in the distance, a

4:14

wild cat is drowned. The

4:18

writers were approaching, though

4:21

indeed and to her own. The

4:25

very next year in 1968 guitarist

4:28

Jimi Hendrix recorded his own version

4:30

of this song which would go

4:32

down in Rock History. There

4:38

is so much to talk about with

4:40

this cover which underneath it's one

4:46

of a kind production

5:05

sound and guitar virtuosity remains true

5:07

to Dylan's original bringing out even

5:09

more of the stormy, dreamlike energy

5:11

that made this song so great

5:13

in the first place. So

5:29

the fundamental differences between these two versions of

5:31

the song are pretty clear but some

5:33

of the specifics are cool. Let's start by

5:36

talking a little bit about the song itself

5:38

since it's a really interesting song just

5:40

from a structural standpoint. Dylan's

5:48

version is recorded in his typical

5:50

late 60s style. It's all acoustic

5:52

featuring Bob Dylan on guitar and

5:55

vocals, along with Charlie McCoy on

5:57

bass and Kenneth Buttery on drums.

6:02

My final featured instrument which we can

6:04

think of as the Color and someone

6:06

is still In for Monica which interjects

6:09

to fill the sun intensity in between

6:11

versus. Those

6:19

musical straightforwardness is precisely the thing that

6:21

allows it to be unusual. It's in

6:23

the que si sharp minor moving between

6:26

three chords see sharp minor, be major

6:28

and a major, then going back to

6:30

be and then back up to see

6:33

sharp minor to do it all over

6:35

again. Since.

6:40

We're thinking about directs Melanie, The Season

6:43

on strong songs. I hope you're hearing

6:45

that trajectory. It goes down, it's and

6:47

then it goes back up. And that's

6:49

all the song is. Three chords moving

6:52

down and backups over and over and

6:54

over again, turning that like a storm

6:56

in the sky. But.

6:59

The harmony isn't what makes the song

7:02

interesting, or at least the harmony as

7:04

tangential to what makes the some interesting

7:06

on the Watch Tower is all about

7:09

the lyrics and the song form. The

7:11

song consists of three vs separated by

7:13

instrumental breaks, and that's it. That extremely

7:15

stripped down structure fits really well with

7:18

what's happening lyrically and supports the phone

7:20

exactly as it is going. Introduces two

7:22

characters, the Joker and the See. He

7:24

gives them each a couple of mine.

7:34

And then in the third

7:36

verse is Suzanne Just enough

7:38

to paint a broader picture

7:40

and then just leases. There

7:42

is so much left unsaid

7:44

unseen. And Sundance. And.

7:48

Before making this episode, I had never

7:50

actually just sat down and read the

7:53

We Are X of All Along The

7:55

Watchtower and thought about them on their

7:57

own terms. Doing so really illuminated for

7:59

me. How great it is purely as

8:01

a poem. I really recommend doing that

8:03

to sitting down. the lyrics and actually

8:06

here, it's not very long. Let me

8:08

just read you the lyrics. Try to

8:10

forget the song. Forget any of the

8:12

many renditions of it you probably heard

8:14

over the years. Forget the versions of

8:16

that you were just hearing in this

8:18

episode. Try to just focus on the

8:20

words and the images they cancer. Must

8:24

get a little atmosphere in. There

8:28

must be some way out of here.

8:30

Said the joker to the sea is

8:32

too much confusion. I can't get no

8:35

release businessmen. They drink my wine. Plowman

8:37

take my earth. None of them along

8:39

the line know what any of it's

8:41

worth. No

8:44

reason to get excited to see see

8:46

kindly spoke. There are many here among

8:48

us who feel that life's but a

8:50

joke. You and I. We've been through

8:52

that and this is not our say.

8:55

So let us not talk falsely. Now

8:57

the our is getting way. All

9:02

along the watchtower princes kept as

9:04

as you follow The women came

9:06

and went. barefoot, servants sit. Outside

9:09

in the distance a wild

9:12

cat did grow to. Writers

9:14

were approaching who wins again

9:16

Now. I

9:22

mean, take it on it's own and

9:24

it's pretty good, right? There's a reason

9:27

it's held up as one of villains

9:29

best, and his version, arranged and performed

9:31

in such a straightforward musical fashion works

9:33

just fine to support all the things

9:36

that make the song extraordinary. Oh

9:42

you know, Professor

9:46

Strong sense of foreboding throughout this

9:48

song. Particularly bad ending as if

9:51

something terrible is brewing, but we

9:53

never find out quite what it

9:55

is. social commentary, biblical illusion. People

9:57

have been interpreting and reenter reading

9:59

these lyrics since the moment Dylan

10:01

recorded them Stir so much ambiguity

10:03

in the sun, so much room

10:05

for the ear of the listener

10:07

to take hold. it's that it's

10:09

no wonder that it's been covered

10:11

so effectively by so many different

10:13

artists. To me, whatever their particular

10:15

meaning, these lyrics cons your feelings

10:17

of storm and apocalypse of brewing

10:19

disaster. And from the very first

10:21

notes of his own cover, Jimi

10:23

Hendrix demonstrated that he heard something

10:25

similar. I

10:31

mean, listen to this and tell me you don't

10:33

fear the storm. As

10:52

wildly different as Hendricks has version is

10:54

vibe, why is the instrumentation isn't actually

10:56

all that changed from the Dylan original?

10:58

It's still got face drums, acoustic guitar

11:01

and vocals with electric guitar subbed in

11:03

for her Monica as the color Solo.

11:05

And of course that new matters of

11:07

season adding electric guitar to the Reason

11:09

is one thing. adding Jimi Hendrix playing

11:12

the electric guitar is right, Another. Guitar

11:23

solos are great, but Hendricks really makes this

11:25

song his own in a lot of different

11:27

ways to a number of creative decisions that

11:29

all taken together really help illustrate how he

11:31

worked as a guitarist and as a bandleader.

11:33

To start with, there's the key that he

11:35

played the song in which is directly related

11:37

to the way that he tuned his guitar,

11:39

and both things had a bigger impact on

11:42

the song than you might think. Sibling.

11:47

Met of the original T Dylan played the song

11:49

and see sharp minor remember which is a key

11:51

that worse okay him and open tuning were suspended

11:53

the way he played it with the Keto up

11:55

on the for Threats but it also works with

11:58

no keep. Oh you can just play see. The

12:00

minor to be major and down to

12:02

an open a major sounds kind of

12:04

fine. There

12:11

must be some way out of

12:13

years. However,

12:15

if you listen to Hendrix his version,

12:18

you'll notice a difference compared to the

12:20

original. It's

12:25

in a different he is sound

12:27

a half step instead of in

12:29

see serve minor he's playing in

12:31

seem minor For the three course

12:33

it is plain are see minor

12:35

be five major a five major.

12:45

Know bunch of you hundred says that they're

12:47

probably already know why he was playing and

12:49

see minor instead of see served minor. That

12:52

reason being that he really liked to tune

12:54

his guitar down a half step and play

12:56

the whole thing and he flat instead of

12:58

eat at. This means that every string on

13:00

the guitar is tuned down one half step,

13:03

which relaxes the strings and gets the whole

13:05

guitar vibrating a little more deeply. So instead

13:07

of eat a D G B. You

13:12

get he thought he said the sad to

13:15

see A D C E C. E

13:21

Flight is not an uncommon tuning for guitar

13:23

players, and a lot of the most famous

13:26

Hendrix recordings were played on his signature Fender

13:28

Strat tuned down to a flat a half

13:30

a sub lower than standard tuning. In

13:33

the movie. know why did

13:35

he turn his guitar that way what we

13:38

could be for a lot of different reasons

13:40

for starters it just makes everything a little

13:42

lower so that gives the guitar a bigger

13:44

slightly fuller sound overall i turned my strapped

13:46

down to a flat why i was learning

13:48

the sun and i found that it makes

13:51

a significant difference in how it feels to

13:53

play the guitar as well and now under

13:55

beings the reason actually really liked playing in

13:57

a flat it's hard to articulate and impossible

13:59

truly demonstrate just with audio, but it makes

14:01

the strings looser and feel a little slippier,

14:04

so it makes it easier to bend and

14:06

shake notes, which Hendrix really likes to do.

14:13

This is actually the first time that I've spent

14:15

a while with my Strat tuned to E flat,

14:17

and I gotta say, I'm a convert. It feels

14:19

so good playing with the guitar a little bit

14:21

looser, and it makes soloing a lot more fun

14:23

too. There

14:28

is of course much more to this arrangement

14:30

than just Janice guitar playing, however great that

14:32

guitar playing may be, and while I don't

14:34

have space for a full-blown recreation of the

14:37

entire song since I have another song I

14:39

also want to talk about, I do want

14:41

to rebuild the individual elements of this recording

14:43

for you all because the arrangement is such

14:45

a big part of what makes this world...

14:55

Hendrix's cover was included on his 1968 album

14:58

Electric Ladyland with his regular drummer

15:00

Mitch Mitchell playing the drums, Dave

15:02

Mason playing acoustic guitar, Brian Jones

15:04

on percussion, and Hendrix himself playing

15:06

bass in place of his usual

15:08

bassist, Noel Redding. The whole recording

15:10

uses a ton of reverb and

15:12

tape delay to create this echoing

15:14

dirge feeling. It rocks so hard

15:16

and it sounds inimitable. You hear

15:18

a couple of notes from this

15:20

intro, and you know exactly what

15:22

you're listening to. So

15:35

I want to get at what makes this

15:37

all sound so iconic, but before that let's

15:39

talk a little bit about that opening rhythmic

15:42

pattern and how to count it, because I

15:44

for one counted this intro totally backwards for

15:46

most of my life. It actually wasn't until

15:48

I sat down to start working on this

15:50

episode that I realized that fact. I used

15:52

to count it like this. One,

16:01

two, three, four, one, two,

16:03

but then... Whoa!

16:08

Something would happen right there and I'd realized that

16:10

I had it turned around. As

16:14

I set about learning the

16:16

parts I realized how it

16:18

actually works. I had been

16:21

counting the riff starting on

16:23

four, like this. One, two,

16:25

three, la-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Which is

16:27

a pretty reasonable way to count

16:29

it. In fact, the riff starts

16:32

on the AND of three. So

16:34

it's a one, two, three, ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

16:36

Which is very different and kind

16:39

of required rewiring my brain in

16:41

order to start hearing it that

16:43

way. And a one,

16:46

two, three. One, two, three, four.

16:48

One, two, three, four. One,

16:51

two, three, four. One,

16:53

two, three, four. One, two, three,

16:55

four. One, two, three,

16:57

four. One, two, three,

17:00

four. And from that point

17:02

on, it's clear where the downbeat is supposed to

17:04

be. There's

17:07

this momentous driving quality to the whole recording.

17:10

Dylan kind of bounced through that chord progression,

17:12

but Hendrix and his band crashed through it.

17:14

The acoustic guitar, the liner notes actually have

17:16

this as a 12-string, but it's acoustic, and

17:19

we've established I don't have a 12-string, so

17:21

I used an acoustic. The

17:23

non-electric guitar plays a heavy pattern.

17:29

The bass, which remember is played by Hendrix, just

17:32

plays the same pattern. And

17:37

Mitch Mitchell hits the drums in just

17:39

an on-slot through this entire recording. It

17:45

proved instructively difficult to try to cop some of

17:47

the sounds from this record on my own. As

17:50

It turns out, it's harder to get the

17:52

sounds of 60s records than it is more

17:54

modern records, since so much of the quality

17:56

of those recordings is tied to the unusual

17:58

quote-unquote outdated record. The equipment on which

18:01

it was recorded so I can't really quite

18:03

get the sound of those old tape recorder

18:05

as or of the unusual techniques they used

18:08

to get over dubbed part since it's almost

18:10

too easy for me to make music here

18:12

in the year twenty twenty fourth. But I

18:14

can definitely say that a big part of

18:17

the sound of this recording and of that

18:19

stormy atmosphere is tied to delay. Specifically, tape

18:21

delay I think, but really just to the

18:24

delay effect. which really just means you take

18:26

a signal and then run it through a

18:28

delay which causes the signal. To echo

18:30

one or more times at a certain

18:32

interval after the original sound. If you

18:34

listen closely to the recording, you can

18:36

hear to have almost everything. It's clear

18:38

to me with the drums, the drums

18:41

are panned a bit to the right,

18:43

but every time Mitch Mitchell hits the

18:45

snare drum, you can hear a second

18:47

snare drum fire off of. This is

18:49

a less. Here

18:52

as. It's

18:58

an interesting approach that I don't hear that

19:00

much in modern music, just throwing almost the

19:02

whole kit into a delay like that, but

19:04

it makes a huge. Difference

19:06

between. Us. And

19:15

the. Also,

19:23

a cumulative things there's still on the

19:26

drums, on the vocals, on the percussion,

19:28

and the more delay you add, the

19:30

more those secondary repeating tones begin to

19:32

crash into one another in the mix

19:34

screening. Denser and denser atmosphere. Com Um,

19:36

Awesome says to be judicious with time

19:38

based effects like The Way and River,

19:40

but I don't know. This recording doesn't

19:42

really strikes me as judicious in that

19:44

respect. Any chances of work. One

19:54

answer minimis ensure that really makes use of

19:56

the delay is that wouldn't walk or maybe

19:59

it's a virus. I'm sort of

20:01

bright percussion sound that plays at the

20:03

outset, almost like a cast a net.

20:15

One hit think Anyways, But

20:17

the delay turns it into a cascade.

20:22

And on actually have a virus laugh or whatever

20:24

instruments and actually is. So I did my best.

20:32

Percussionist Frame Jones added a second crucial

20:34

instruments of this recording as well, if

20:36

one that I always try to call

20:38

out when I can since it's consistently

20:40

one of the most mighty instruments in

20:42

a given ban despite it's small size

20:44

And that is the tambourine, which you

20:46

can hear panned over with the drums

20:48

over on the right, and which carries

20:50

the groove throughout the entire recording. Last

20:58

thing we gotta add is to me himself,

21:01

it with lot of fun to try to

21:03

learn his guitar parts, even just sort of

21:05

learn them, but it won't spend too long

21:07

on that process here since I recently talked

21:10

a bunch about Jimmy Hendrix on the show.

21:12

If you do want to hear more about

21:14

his distinct style, the challenges of transcribing his

21:16

solo sick out the epithet from season Five

21:19

about strong like personalising his dream is nineteen

21:21

Sixty Seven. Although on Hey Joe. He

21:29

the East V agreed sounds to learn

21:31

to play along with him in. Every

21:33

time I do I'm struck by how

21:35

hugely influential he was and how much

21:37

Jimmy you can hear and feel in

21:40

the playing of every great rock soloist

21:42

who came after him. Since

21:52

one of those things where it seems like

21:54

it wouldn't be hard but then to get

21:56

his particular time feel it's to groove with

21:58

his confidence is real. Really hard and. I

22:02

like. And

22:07

this. Talking about his solo, hundreds of playing

22:10

on the Vs here is just as inimitable

22:12

and harder to do if you're trying to

22:14

sing as though I think he recorded this,

22:16

guitar parts separate from the vocals. And

22:22

Nurses guitar playing had a lot of

22:24

Little Hendricks as homes and one of

22:26

them was that he would plant himself

22:28

in one place and then play little

22:31

embellishments on top of that planted bottom

22:33

note. His famous intro solo on Little

22:35

Wing is then we also tuned down

22:37

to a flat that has this kind

22:39

of thing all over it. Is

22:43

Pat and then who in Dallas?

22:46

And. And

22:48

in their. Twenties

22:52

or Scott causes flowers which I really

22:54

love whenever to me those that he

22:56

says to me is planting flowers. On

23:08

the verses of All Along The Watchtower,

23:10

Hendricks is constantly planting these beautiful little

23:13

flowers in the spaces between his vocal

23:15

phrases. He wasn't for it, You'll hear

23:17

him play something after almost every vocal

23:20

frame. First

23:25

one killer. Here's another one. Comes

23:31

another. And

23:35

one more. Here.

23:38

So much improvised ingenuity and Hendrix as

23:40

accompaniment of his own focus on every

23:42

reporting ever made it perhaps an under

23:44

appreciated aspect of his mastery of the

23:47

guitar. And I mean that makes sense

23:49

when you look at how groundbreaking his

23:51

read parts were. I mean, come on,

23:57

But as great as as leads are actually find

23:59

his playing. On versus the songs to be

24:01

further to emulate in much more it is

24:03

syncrude. With

24:10

more. Thing for me, related, you could spend

24:13

a lifetime thinking and the particular and

24:15

never quite plainly. With

24:24

that being said, fraud Hendrix has embellishments.

24:26

He's actually staying pretty true to the

24:28

general groove and arrangement of the original

24:30

recording. Dylan's version is acoustic but it

24:33

to features what I call a pop

24:35

forward grooves as Kenneth Poetry Place All

24:37

for Down be on the snare drum

24:39

rather than playing a backbeat with the

24:41

snare drum. On to In for. One

24:51

sees saw hard. To

24:58

compare to what miss metal plate on

25:00

the Vs and especially on a difference.

25:13

Have biggest chains that Mitchell makes

25:15

compared to the original is during

25:17

the instrumental brakes on Dylan's Original

25:19

as he takes his harmonica solos.

25:21

Patrice group remains steady. Mitch

25:28

Mitchell. on the other hand, he plays

25:30

that groove during the Vs, but when

25:32

it's time for hundreds of guitar solo,

25:35

he goes for something different, unleashing of

25:37

wide open rock. An

25:47

important seen since it as a lot

25:50

more dynamism and structure to the arrangements

25:52

and help set the instrumental breaks further

25:54

apart from the versus. The

26:00

last thing that I want to mention

26:02

is Hendrix's singing, which is another aspect

26:04

of his artistry that sometimes gets overshadowed

26:06

by his guitar playing. I think Jimi

26:08

Hendrix is a wonderful singer. I love

26:10

his voice. He had this rich, deep

26:13

instrument with a powerful growl in his

26:15

upper register and just so much character.

26:17

He was always somewhere between a blues

26:19

holler and a croon, like he was

26:21

talking to you. There's this intimacy in

26:23

his voice, but he was also kind

26:25

of just singing to himself, and we

26:27

were just getting to hear it. I'm

26:31

here, I'm looking at you. Who

26:33

do I want to

26:35

hold you? I

26:38

do what I want to hear,

26:40

and sing, and this is all

26:43

I've made. His

26:47

singing provides a lot of the emotional contour of

26:49

this cover, and it makes for a very different

26:51

energy on some of the song's most famous lines.

26:54

Like when the thief says, no reason

26:56

to get excited, Jimi gets excited.

26:59

No reason to get

27:02

excited, because you think

27:04

I'm old. We're

27:06

near the end of the song, when the wind begins

27:08

to howl. The wind begins to howl.

27:13

I wouldn't dream of trying to cop

27:15

Hendrix's vocals on my own or recreate

27:17

them for you or anything, but I

27:19

did want to mention them since, like

27:21

I said, I think his singing is

27:23

a big part of what makes this

27:25

cover work so well, and I really

27:27

like Jimi Hendrix's singing in general. Alright,

27:29

so let's try to put that all

27:31

together, all of the new elements that

27:34

Jimi Hendrix is introducing to this cover

27:36

to make it sound distinct. That driving

27:38

acoustic guitar pushing its way through Dylan's

27:40

chord progression, the bass doubling it down

27:42

the octave, those crashing drums flapping

27:44

back with the stereo tape delay,

27:46

playing a steady pop forward groove

27:48

on the verse just like the

27:50

original before opening up into an

27:52

unleashed rock groove on the guitar

27:54

break. That clacking wood

27:56

block or vibrate slap sound punctuating the

27:59

intro riff. Jones transitions to

28:01

a pulsating tambourine and Hendrix's

28:03

down-tune strap wailing its first

28:06

entrance above it all before

28:08

transitioning to his flower-planting approach

28:10

to ornamenting and accompanying his

28:12

vocal lead. It's

28:15

a real transformation of the song, and I

28:17

gotta say, this was a really fun challenge.

28:19

Ears on, here we go. There's

28:40

something unusual about every single part of

28:42

this cover, which is a good reminder

28:44

of how new this all was in

28:47

the late 60s multi-track recording, tape delay,

28:49

electric guitar solos. There was no agreed-upon

28:51

best way to do this stuff, which

28:53

resulted in a lot of interesting experimentation

28:56

and some pretty amazing recording. It's

29:12

just not 1968 anymore, so try as I might,

29:14

I can only get so close to the original.

29:27

The remainder of this recording is a bit of

29:29

a Jimi Hendrix tour. You get

29:31

a lot of the textures and voices that

29:33

Jimi could use the guitar to conjure. There's

29:36

this nice sliding chordal ambiance.

29:44

There's a perfect use of the

29:46

wah pedal halfway through, which really changes

29:48

the whole character of his guitar

29:50

playing. And

29:55

as virtuosic and creative as Jimi's

29:57

playing is, the song still remains

29:59

underneath. beneath it all, Dylan's haunting

30:01

lyrics and storming cyclical song form,

30:03

providing a platform for Jimmy to

30:06

make his own musical state. There

30:16

are, of course, many more covers of

30:19

All Along the Watchtower out in the

30:21

world, it's surely among Dylan's most covered

30:23

songs, and while Hendrix's cover is arguably

30:25

the most well-known, the song has turned

30:28

up so many different places. Dave Matthews

30:30

does a memorable cover that significantly changes

30:32

the overall flow and feel of the

30:34

song. I've

30:39

seen them do this live, they usually do it

30:41

as an encore, and it always kills. And

30:55

of course, when nerds like me

30:57

hear this song, we can't help

30:59

but think about its role in

31:01

a certain infamous reveal on Ron

31:03

Moore's Battlestar Galactica remake, which began

31:05

with characters spontaneously uttering lyrics from

31:07

the song. And

31:15

culminated in the most ominous group

31:17

humming scene I think I've ever

31:19

seen. If

31:26

you haven't seen the show, you don't really know what's going on

31:28

here, but if you know, you know. Alright,

31:34

that's enough, god damn it! It's an

31:36

amazing song, honestly at this point, it's

31:38

part of the firmament of American popular

31:41

music. But as much as the song

31:43

lends itself to reinterpretation and as many

31:45

great covers as there have been, there's

31:48

just something special and unquantifiable

31:50

about Hendrix's version. Learning

31:55

this cover really helped me understand

31:57

how thoroughly Jimi Hendrix defied category

32:01

music critics and even music listeners love

32:03

to put music in a box to

32:05

categorize songs by genre, blues, folk, rock,

32:08

pop, but American music and really music

32:10

in general it just doesn't work that

32:12

way. If

32:16

you had to call this music something you just

32:18

got to call it by his name. This

32:21

is Jimmy Music. Some

32:31

covers, including many that I've

32:33

covered on strong covers in

32:35

the past, eclipse the original

32:37

recording in the public consciousness

32:39

and become definitive or at

32:41

least arguably definitive versions of

32:43

the song. The second cover

32:46

I'm gonna talk about though

32:48

is an interesting one because

32:50

it isn't really like that.

32:52

It significantly reimagines the original

32:55

but it does so in

32:57

a way that for me

32:59

at least really just serves

33:01

to emphasize qualities that were

33:04

already present. And while it's

33:06

a great cover on its own for me

33:08

at least it served even more as a

33:10

way to better understand and appreciate the original

33:13

song in the original recording. As

33:19

a result this analysis will actually spend

33:21

more time on the original than on

33:23

the cover though the cover is still

33:25

an important piece of the puzzle. Let's

33:27

begin then with that original recording a

33:29

song that makes itself known from the

33:31

very first guitar note. And

33:37

if you don't get it from the guitar you'll

33:39

definitely get it from the vocal. Dolly

33:43

Parton's Jolene written

33:49

in 1973 apparently on the same day

33:52

that she wrote

33:57

previous strong song I Will Always Love

33:59

You. Easily one of the singers

34:01

most famous songs, and if he wasn't for

34:03

three seconds, it's pretty easy to see why.

34:12

Prefer. So.

34:25

We really musically vocally. It's a wonderful

34:27

time song which of course can become

34:29

almost the kind of salads to other

34:32

musicians whom among you would dare to

34:34

try to cover so rain and who

34:36

could actually make this some their own.

34:46

Of course they're fan. Plenty of covers

34:49

of So Mean over the years. far

34:51

more than I've ever listened to. Just

34:53

last week Beyond Save Release her own

34:55

cover of jewelry and which makes some

34:58

really interesting and provocative changes. I made

35:00

this episode and published to the Early

35:02

Access Patriot feed before that cover came

35:04

out. So as strong and worthy of

35:07

analysis as Beyond says cover his, it'll

35:09

just have to wait for a seizure

35:11

edition of strong covers. Of course there

35:13

have been other covers that have put

35:16

interesting personal stamps. On the song it's

35:18

and each one provides a new angle

35:20

from which to better understand and appreciate

35:22

the original. The cover I'll be focusing

35:24

on for this episode arrived almost thirty

35:27

years after to mean with first recorded.

35:40

And then reached it's cathartic apotheosis a

35:42

few years later, on stage in England

35:44

in two thousand and. I

35:54

was when the White Stripes make weight

35:56

on drums and Jack went unreturned hook

35:58

or would record and later perform. A

36:00

cover of Your Mean significantly

36:02

reimagine the seals and overall

36:05

musical thousands of the song

36:07

forcing her to with places

36:09

emotionally rock course. The

36:15

site stripped down hard hitting version

36:17

really serves to make me understand

36:19

some things about the original, mainly

36:21

how little stylistic differences matter with

36:23

some this good. Really,

36:34

the wiser to cover just

36:36

makes explicit effect that becomes

36:38

retrospectively obvious. Even

36:48

in it's original acoustic integration

36:50

to mean packs opponents. So

37:00

let's talk about why that is

37:02

and how by stripping the song

37:04

even further down to it's basis

37:06

second make white helped reveal be

37:08

exposed nerves and fiercely beating heart

37:11

of this incredible thoughts. Are

37:20

with. The music and then we can get

37:22

into the lyrics and away. This tells the

37:25

story and the way that the White Stripes

37:27

helped refocus the nature of that story. To

37:29

start with, we gotta talk about that one

37:31

of a kind guitar per. To

37:36

lead his. Seventies

37:38

Nashville record. It was produced

37:40

by Story Country producer Bob

37:42

Ferguson and man, it sounds

37:45

so good. Precise and specific,

37:47

just brimming with musicality, performed

37:49

with a subtle but inimitable

37:51

seal. the

37:55

songs heart beats through that guitar part

37:57

are really that pair of guitar parts

37:59

which i will always thing of as

38:01

maybe the best ever example of the

38:03

power of finger-picked acoustic guitar. I

38:07

mean, just listen to it. I

38:18

very rarely seek out isolated tracks when

38:20

I'm making this show, but as I

38:22

researched Jolene and in particular these guitar

38:24

parts, I came across this one. By

38:29

most accounts, Jolene was recorded by Nashville

38:31

session guitarists Chip Young and Wayne Moss,

38:33

with Young playing the main bouncing gut

38:36

string part on the right and Moss

38:38

on the sympathetic spangly steel string part

38:40

which is panned to the left. This

38:46

isolated track is floating around online in

38:48

a few places, but I first heard

38:50

it on the YouTube channel of guitarist

38:53

and music historian Zach Childs, who had

38:55

tracked down Wayne Moss to ask him

38:57

about who played the part back in

38:59

1973. In

39:01

the process, Zach Childs also got access

39:03

to the original master, the 16-track master,

39:05

where he could hear those guitar parts

39:08

in isolation. When Childs asked him about

39:10

the session, Wayne Moss said that it

39:12

was him and Chip Young. That's extra

39:14

helpful because, at least with my vinyl

39:17

pressing of this album, which is also

39:19

called Jolene, there aren't any personnel credits,

39:21

there's just production and engineering credits. Chip

39:24

Young, in an older interview uploaded to YouTube

39:26

by the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum,

39:29

he says the same, that it was him

39:31

and Moss. He also tells a funny story

39:33

about how Parton showed them the song and

39:35

was somehow able to play it despite the

39:38

amazing nails on her fretting hand. You

39:41

know, when she showed us that song, she

39:43

had fingernails. Golly, a dog there must have

39:45

been that long. And she was playing

39:47

that thing and those old nails would hang out. I

39:49

said, how are you making a chord with those nails?

39:52

I don't know, I'm just getting my fingers down

39:54

on strings. I

40:00

recommend checking out that

40:08

interview

40:10

too.

40:20

I've linked to both of those videos in

40:22

the show notes. And if you caught that,

40:25

Young mentioned getting the idea for the guitar

40:27

pattern from Joe South, who was another Nashville

40:29

guitarist and songwriter. And I gotta say,

40:31

I didn't expect to fall down any kind of a

40:33

rabbit hole about this guitar part. I

40:35

figured it would be pretty established who played

40:37

it, but I really feel the benefit of

40:39

other folks who went much further down the

40:41

same rabbit hole. I do want to express

40:43

my appreciation for them, for people who have

40:45

taken the time to document and upload this

40:48

record of who played this part and who

40:50

inspired it, because it's an incredible guitar part.

40:52

It's been listened to by millions, if

40:54

not billions of people at this point,

40:56

and the identities of the guitarists who inspired

40:58

and then came up with and recorded

41:00

the parts could easily have been

41:02

lost to time. The whole thing really makes

41:05

me think about how much music history really

41:07

does just get lost to time, and I

41:09

guess that's just history. We do our best and

41:11

we preserve what we can. And

41:27

as for the particulars of that guitar part,

41:29

I haven't learned both Young and Moss's parts,

41:31

so I'll just focus on that main, most

41:34

famous part which is played on a gut

41:36

string guitar, which is why it has that

41:38

slightly muted sound. I don't have a gut

41:40

string guitar, I just have a steel string.

41:42

We will make do. Furthermore, I believe Young is

41:44

using a thumb pick on this, which is a

41:47

pick that wraps around your thumb and allows for

41:49

more percussive bass notes when finger picking. I don't

41:51

play with a thumb pick, so I'll just be

41:53

picking with my regular old thumb. This

41:55

guitar part is a variation on what's called

41:58

Travis picking, which is named for singer-guitar Merle

42:00

Travis. It's a style of playing that involves

42:02

bouncing your thumb back and forth between the

42:05

lowest three strings of the guitar while your

42:07

first three fingers alternate on the first three

42:09

strings, the higher strings of the guitar. It's

42:11

a super common style of playing particularly in

42:14

country music and it's a nice way to

42:16

turn a chord into

42:21

a bouncing sequence of single notes and

42:23

pinches where you hit two notes at

42:25

the same time. I've

42:32

actually never gotten my Travis picking totally

42:34

locked in. It's really fun to learn

42:36

it because it's so mechanical and learning

42:39

Jovine for this episode has actually got

42:41

me on the right track. I took

42:43

this song into my guitar lesson and

42:46

now I am drilling Travis picking and

42:48

I'm trying to get it locked in

42:50

because it's something that any country guitarist

42:53

can do in their sleep or you

42:55

know can do while singing a really

42:57

complicated melody. Once you get the pattern

43:00

under your fingers it just becomes automatic

43:02

and you can turn a simple strummed

43:04

chord progression into something much more

43:07

elaborate and ornate. Young

43:15

and Moss took that principle and applied it

43:17

to Jovine modifying the basic Travis pattern into

43:19

something a bit groovier and more specific. Jovine

43:21

is in C sharp minor so they've got

43:24

the capo up on the fourth fret which

43:26

allows them to play as though they're playing

43:28

in A minor and B playing in C

43:30

sharp minor and incidentally that's the same place

43:32

that Bob Dylan had the capo when he

43:34

played all along the watchtower which is also

43:37

in C sharp minor so this is a

43:39

big episode for capo on four. The pattern

43:41

begins with the B string ringing open which

43:43

makes for this really nice C sharp sus

43:45

9 sound. I

43:48

always think of that as the Diablo

43:50

chord. There's actually no third in this

43:52

opening chord though very quickly they hammer

43:55

on that B string up to an

43:57

E which makes for the minor third

43:59

and just a standard C

44:01

sharp minor and that movement, that

44:03

hammer-on on the B string, that's

44:05

really key to the way this

44:07

riff sounds. Listen

44:12

to the actual recording and keep your ears

44:14

out for that, for the way there's that

44:16

little pop where they go up from a

44:18

D sharp to an E. It's

44:25

so good, it's just got such a bounce to it. So

44:33

for another parallel, just like all

44:35

along the watchtower, Jolyne is only

44:37

three chords and has no bridge

44:39

or interlude or anything. It's just

44:41

C sharp minor, then E major,

44:43

and then B major before going

44:46

back to C sharp. But remember

44:48

that idea of musical directionality? Well,

44:50

Jolyne has all these similarities to watchtower,

44:53

but it's actually moving in the opposite

44:55

direction. All along the

44:57

watchtower swirls down, down, down, but

45:00

Jolyne climbs up and up

45:02

before finally descending. That's

45:15

a total coincidence, just something I noticed after

45:17

I started making the episode, but it's kinda

45:19

cool. Now

45:23

Jack White of the White Stripes is

45:25

both a student and a scholar of

45:27

the guitar. The guy has forgotten more

45:30

about guitar history than I'll ever learn,

45:32

and it's more than likely that he

45:34

knows the original Jolyne part and probably

45:36

who recorded it and where it came

45:38

from. But of course, he wasn't interested

45:40

in totally recreating it note for note

45:42

for his cover instead, he reimagined it

45:44

into a slightly different place on the

45:46

guitar, which had all sorts of downstream

45:49

effects for the way the White Stripes

45:51

cover works. This

45:54

is the studio version where everything's just a little

45:56

easier to make out. So

46:08

as you're probably hearing, there's something familiar

46:11

about the guitar part Wade is playing.

46:13

It bears some relation to the original

46:15

guitar part, but it also sounds pretty

46:17

different from what Young and Moss recorded

46:19

for Parton back in the 70s. Obviously,

46:21

for starters, while the studio version does

46:24

have an acoustic guitar in a secondary

46:26

role, the primary guitar on this is

46:28

electric. I'm not sure what kind of

46:30

guitar it is, but regardless, it is

46:32

a far cry from a gut-string-sounds-he. The

46:42

second notable thing is that Wade is

46:44

playing in a different key. Instead of

46:46

C-sharp minor like the original, he's playing

46:48

in D minor, but he's not using

46:50

a capo, so he's actually playing in

46:52

a regular tuning and moving everything up

46:55

one half step. And again, this is

46:57

a total coincidence. I swear I didn't

46:59

pick these two covers because of this,

47:01

but it's pretty wild that Dylan's song

47:03

was in C-sharp minor, capo on four,

47:05

and Hendrix played it with no capo

47:07

down a half step in C minor,

47:09

while Dolly's song is also in C-sharp

47:11

minor, capo on four, and Jack White played

47:13

it with no capo up a half step

47:16

in D minor. Just a funny coincidence.

47:18

So to play the song in D

47:20

minor, you basically just move the whole

47:22

pattern up one string set using the

47:24

open D string as the root. And

47:26

it's actually pretty similar to what Young

47:28

and Moss were doing. It just feels

47:30

very different because he's playing with open

47:32

strings, he's playing with a pick, and

47:34

he's on an electric guitar. So there's

47:36

a much more open and loose feel

47:38

to what he's doing. Also,

47:42

you heard that right. He's playing in D,

47:44

so he's a half step higher than Dolly

47:46

Parton, which means he needs to sing the

47:48

melody even higher than she did. That

48:02

vocal performance gets at another huge difference between

48:05

this cover and the original. Superficially, there's the

48:07

fact that White, a man, not only sings

48:09

in a higher key than Parton, which pushes

48:11

him up into that amazing, tortured, upper register,

48:14

strangle scream thing he can do, but he

48:16

also dishes a long tradition of gender swapping

48:18

lyrics to pick a new singer and he

48:20

just sings the song the way she sang

48:23

it, because I mean, why change the

48:33

song. As

48:46

Parton has told it, Jolene was inspired by

48:48

a few things. A young fan named Jolene,

48:50

whose name Dolly thought would make for a

48:53

good song title and who looked like the

48:55

Jolene Dolly would later imagine in the song,

48:57

as well as a time when she felt

48:59

jealous of another woman shortly after she and

49:02

her husband were married. Jolene, the song, is

49:04

notable for a number of reasons, both musically

49:06

and lyrically. Lyrically, it's remarkable because of how

49:08

unusual it is for a song of this

49:11

sort to tell its story in this way.

49:13

In country music, there's a long tradition of

49:15

what musicologist Nadine Hubbs calls the

49:18

Other Woman song, where the singer confronts

49:20

the other woman in her man's life,

49:22

often demeaning and threatening her. Hubbs cites

49:25

Loretta Lynn's Fist City in Carrie Underwood's

49:27

Before He Cheats as examples of this

49:29

song style, but there are loads of

49:31

them I'm sure you've heard of you.

49:34

Jolene is certainly an Other Woman song,

49:36

but Parton ingeniously flips the whole paradigm

49:38

on its head. Parton's narrator isn't angry

49:40

with Jolene, she's in awe of her.

49:43

The first thing she does is describe

49:45

Jolene's beauty and acknowledge her power.

49:47

I'm begging of you, she says,

49:49

please don't take my man. But

49:52

this song has an interesting, I

49:54

guess you'd call it the song's

49:56

emotional imaginary? It's this exaggerated world

49:58

of emotional truths. The singer's man

50:00

is essentially a non-factor, and

50:03

she herself has been rendered

50:05

completely powerless by Jo-ween, this

50:07

outside horror. She talks

50:09

about feeling sleep and there's nothing

50:11

left until it gets so strong when

50:14

he calls your name Jo-ween. Later she

50:16

sings, My happiness depends on you

50:18

and whatever you decide

50:20

to do, and through it all

50:22

she sings beautifully the other woman's

50:25

name, over and over and over.

50:27

Jo-ween. Jo-ween. Jo-ween.

50:29

You can have your choice of man,

50:31

but I- It's

50:38

easy to lose sight of this

50:40

amid the band's bouncing groove and

50:42

Parton's impeccable vocals, but Jo-ween's a

50:44

desperate song, with a narrator who's

50:47

been cornered and left with no

50:49

choice but to directly address Jo-ween

50:51

and hope the other woman chooses

50:53

mercy. And that, I think, is

50:55

what the White Stripes cover taps into so

50:57

well. Jo-ween's precision and control

51:00

may mask the frantic fear of

51:02

her protagonist, but Jack White has

51:04

no compunction about letting that all

51:06

out into the open. This

51:19

live recording in particular really rocks, and I

51:21

haven't talked much about Meg White here, but

51:23

I do love her drumming. Don't worry, the

51:25

White Stripes will get their hue on Trom

51:27

Trom. It's

51:30

Trom Trom. Jack's

51:35

shrieking vocals and guitar and Meg's crashing

51:38

drumming make for such a marked contrast

51:40

with the original that they wind up

51:42

being pretty complimentary. I almost

51:44

imagine the two versions of the song

51:47

representing twin truths of the protagonist, Jo-ween's

51:50

version on the outside, the

51:52

closely controlled heartbroken spouse, composing

51:54

herself for a controlled semi-public

51:57

plea. And

52:03

the striped version on the inside, the

52:05

raging betrayal and heartbreak that would cause

52:07

a person to make such a plea

52:10

in the first place. White's

52:27

vocal performance, in which he raises the key

52:29

and forces himself to sing even higher than

52:31

the angel-voiced parton, reminds me of another alternate

52:33

version of Jolene which doesn't quite count as

52:35

a cover, but that does give new insight

52:38

into the original recording similar to the White

52:40

Stripes version. It's a version I first heard

52:42

about 10 years ago, it's billed as being

52:44

a 33RPM version of

52:47

the song, it's really just slowed

52:49

down and down-tuned a fourth from

52:51

C-sharp minor to G-sharp minor which

52:53

significantly changes the feel of the

52:55

song. It

52:57

also completely changes parton's vocal performance making

52:59

her sound more in the range of

53:02

a male tenor. It's

53:13

a little bit uncanny but I've also

53:15

always found it oddly compelling. You can

53:17

really hear parton's gear shifts as she

53:19

moves through her vocal break. You

53:32

can also hear how emotional her performance

53:34

really is, though she's subtle enough and

53:36

moving fast enough that it's easy to

53:39

miss it in the original. Slow

53:41

down, you can hear the tears in her voice. Just

53:53

one more lens through which to view

53:55

the incredible song that is Jolene. Whether

54:02

you're hearing is some by a full speed

54:04

Dolly Parton. Movable

54:10

block wall. Ruined

54:18

by slowed down Dolly Parton.

54:28

For sung by any of the

54:30

countless other artists who have covered

54:32

over the years, To Lean will

54:34

remain a song freighted with nuance

54:36

and subtle emotions that with a

54:39

simple core progression, stripped down structure

54:41

and deeply relate of a lyric.

54:43

other tags for creative reinterpretation. And

55:04

then I'll do it for Strong Covers Volume

55:06

Three, Hope you enjoy that! This was a

55:08

really educational one for me across a number

55:10

of friends and I got a lot out

55:12

of a process of putting it together out.

55:14

I was able to share some of that

55:16

with others. You thanks as always the Emily

55:18

Williams for her production support this season as

55:20

well as to Scott Pemberton for his help

55:22

learning some of these guitar parts and for

55:24

his general wisdom on the playing of Jimi

55:27

Hendrix. Scott really knows his stuff. Also a

55:29

set out to Zach Child's for his work

55:31

uncovering and documenting the proper crediting for Joe.

55:33

Lean definitely check out his youtube channel and

55:35

thanks as well to needing Hub is for

55:37

thought provoking work writing about the song. Finally,

55:39

of course thanks to everyone who support strong

55:42

sons and Patriot. For just five dollars a

55:44

month physically a cup of coffee, you can

55:46

meaningfully support the creation of this independent so

55:48

and at that here and higher. you'll also

55:51

get episodes of the So two weeks early

55:53

so you could be listening to the next

55:55

episode of a So right now and it

55:57

is a pretty cool episode. I'll just tell.

56:00

That patreon.com/strong Songs and thanks as well to

56:02

everyone who's made a one time donation lately.

56:04

Those are also very helpful and there's a

56:06

link for that in the show notes as

56:08

well. A little note here for all of

56:10

you out there with your own musical practice

56:13

or your own creative projects I hope are

56:15

going well for you and if your listeners

56:17

who has picked up a new instrument or

56:19

rediscovered an old instruments lately, if you've been

56:21

feeling your practice routine faltering recently, try to

56:24

get back to it's. just go back to

56:26

basics. In remember a little bit. every day

56:28

is better than a lot. Every. Few

56:30

days. Or I'd

56:32

settle. Do it for me. Thanks as always

56:34

for listening. I'll be back in two weeks

56:37

with an episode on one of my favorite

56:39

musicians of all time. Until then, say tears

56:41

and keep listening.