John Wesley Harding/The Wicked Messenger/Baby Tonight/All Along the Watchtower
"John Wesley Harding" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1967 album of the same name.Dylan told Jann Wenner in a 1969 Rolling Stone interview that the song "started out to be a long ballad. I was gonna write a ballad on ... like maybe one of those old cowboy ... you know, a real long ballad. But in the middle of the second verse, I got tired. I had a tune, and I didn't want to waste the tune; it was a nice little melody, so I just wrote a quick third verse, and I recorded that.
"The Wicked Messenger" is a song written and originally performed by Bob Dylan for his album John Wesley Harding. The song was recorded in Columbia's Studio A, Nashville, on November 29, 1967. The song's instrumentation is light, a characteristic shared with the rest of John Wesley Harding. It features a repetitive descending bass line that carries the song, and the most prominent instrument used is Bob Dylan's acoustic guitar.
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan backed with "Baby Tonight" both songs initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding it was the only single taken from the album and it was not successful, "All Along the Watchtower" has been included on most of Dylan's subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan's live albums.
Covered by numerous artists in various genres, "All Along the Watchtower" is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968 and was ranked 47th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Following a motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan spent the next 18 months recuperating at his home in Woodstock and writing songs. According to Clinton Heylin, all the songs for John Wesley Harding were written and recorded during a six-week period at the end of 1967. With one child born in early 1966 and another in mid-1967, Dylan had settled into family life.
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