Hadn't heard this XTC cover of "All Along the Watchtower" before.
A couple of interesting things here:
- By my own definition of "versions" and "covers"—i.e. versions are copies of musical material, covers are copies of musical performances—this is clearly a cover of Dylan's song. It's a cover with low fidelity to its source, but still a cover. Despite genre differences, Dylan's performance matters more here than the song. The reuse of the harmonica is a particularly nice touch.
- What is great here is how little XTC takes from Hendrix's version, by all accounts, the definite version of the song. Perhaps, a certain enthusiasm for noise, but not much else.
