Video: All Along the Watchtower — Playing for Change

I remember having a daydream about the opening acoustic guitar part of “All Along The Watchtower” ending with a Native American scream and a big native drum on the downbeat. That was the spark to assemble one of our biggest and deepest Songs Around The World. From Beirut to New Orleans to the Lakota Nation, musicians play and sing like a musical army determined to stop suffering and greed all over the world. As a society, we need to get back to our roots and connect deeper with our ancestors and native people in general so we can find the wisdom we need to move forward as a human race. As Jimi Hendrix once said, “If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” — Mark Johnson, Playing for Change Co-Founder

Music and lyrics by Bob Dylan

Performed by Playing for change

Running time: 4:22

Email subscribers may click on the title of this post to watch the video.

“There must be some kind of way out of here,”
Said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth.”

“No reason to get excited,”
The thief, he kindly spoke.
“There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour’s getting late.”

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl