We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Woodstock Motion Picture Soundtrack
Year: 1969
Let’s face it: “The Star Spangled Banner” is not a great song.
Not only does it have musical roots in a British drinking song — let us never forget that our national anthem is basically stolen intellectual property — it’s also fucking impossible to sing if you don’t have the range of a Whitney Houston.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #788: Jimi Hendrix – “The Star Spangled Banner (Live at Woodstock)”
Album: Electric Ladyland
Year: 1968
The preferred theme song of both old Cylons and young Popes is also the best artifact from 60 years of Dylanology.
As the consensus “all-time greatest cover version” (though I still prefer Hüsker Dü’s psychedelic thrash version of “Eight Miles High“) in rock history, there is absolutely no question that Jimi Hendrix’s reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” deserves every single accolade it’s garnered over the decades.
Like most of the best songs on John Wesley Harding, Dylan’s original “All Along The Watchtower” was mostly acoustic, completely chorusless with the only concessions to rock ‘n’ roll being Kenny Buttrey’s relentless snare drum.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #787: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “All Along The Watchtower”
Album: Are You Experienced
Year: 1967
Every other song on Are You Experienced had some kind of precedent in the past.
There were tight pop songs like “Foxy Lady” and “Purple Haze.” There were the hard-rocking pop songs like “Foxy Lady” or “Fire,” there were the bluesy songs like “Manic Depression” or “The Wind Cries Mary,” there was the psychedelia of “Love or Confusion” and the title track. And, of course, there was the mandated-by-law cover of “Hey Joe.”
Except for “Third Stone From The Sun.” It was pretty much unprecedented.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #785: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “Third Stone From The Sun”
It has been four months since I’ve done one of these, a far cry from my original plan of doing one a month, and I can’t promise when the next one will be, or even if there will be a next one.
So, really quickly, the ground rules. These aren’t about artists, or albums, or even songs, but rather, moments: that piece of a song that draws you into it; that piece of a song that you wait to happen again; that piece of a song that is running in your head when you can’t sleep; that piece of a song that you find yourself humming at inopportune times.
That piece of a song that you can’t live without.
This is the ninth in a series: The first one had 25; the second one had 24; the third one had 23; the fourth one had 22; the fifth one had 21; and the sixth had 20; the seventh had 19 and the eighth had 18.