“All Along The Watchtower” is a cover of Bob Dylan’s song of the same name. Hendrix takes Dylan’s lyrics and rewrites the music to expand and highlight the meaning of the lyrics. The song is noted for its cryptic lyrics, and this version is known for the solo before the final verse.

Hendrix’s version drastically changes the instrumentation of the song, with the video below breaking down the meaning and the music theory behind both versions:

While the lyrics have been unpacked and analyzed in detail, another way to view it is as a larger metaphor in its entirety. The references to a relatively large cast of characters—from the influential (princes, businessman) to the underdogs (plowmen, servants, women) to the independents or outcasts (joker, thief)—present the multitude of points of view that make up everyone’s reality (the view from the watchtower, the distance). The conversation suggests the tension between these realities, the confusion as to what or who is right and wrong, as well as to the futility of trying to make sense of it.

The clue might be in the title. The song progressively lifts the perspective from the intimate setting of a one-to-one conversation to the level of the watchtower where princes can see the others coming and going—even the riders approaching from the distance. In the end, the wind seems to reign supreme over all these different perspectives and realities which seems to suggest that there exists not one objective reality, but different individual perspectives.