Wikipedia:Peer review/All Along the Watchtower/archive1

All Along the Watchtower

We've listed this article for peer review because following the very helpful GA review by Kyle Peake, we would like some feedback on any improvements that should be made before taking this forward as a featured article candidate.

Thanks, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:18, 18 July 2022 (UTC) and ErnestKrause

From Ojorojo's talk page

(copied here with permission from Ojorojo)

It's fine for a GA, but I think it's a ways from being a FA. For one, the "Music" sections for both Dylan and Hendrix rely solely on one source (and nearly all the sentences include a variation on "Zak writes/sees/finds ..."). FA criteria include "well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" and "comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details". Dylan and Hendrix are probably among the most written about 1960s American rock musicians and I think there is more to say. Some of the post-GA edits have problems, which should be fixed. Also, the article may benefit from a more experienced copy edit. I'm curious what others have to say and may have some more specific comments as it goes along. Good luck. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:12, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Possible sources for more on the music

We could (re)check these...

• Williams, Paul (2004) [1990]. Bob Dylan: performing artist. 1960–1973 the early years. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-84449-095-0.
• Margotin, Philippe; Guedson, Jean-Michel (2022). Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (Expanded ed.). New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 978-0-7624-7573-5.
• Gray, Michael (2002). Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-6382-1.
• Yaffe, David (2011). Like a Complete Unknown. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12457-6.

• Keith Nainby & John M. Radosta. Bob Dylan in Performance: Song, Stage, and Screen (2019)
• Padgett, Ray. Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time (2017)
• Kramer, Michael. "The Multitrack Model Cultural History and the Interdisciplinary Study of Popular Music" (pp. 220-255) in Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines (2005)
• David V. Moskowitz. The Words and Music of Jimi Hendrix (2010)
• Allan F Moore. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song (2012) - preview on Google books looks promising
• Bobby Owsinski. Bobby Owsinski's Deconstructed Hits - Classic Rock, Vol. 1 - preview on Google books looks promising

Also, we need to have a look at the genre desriptions in sources, I think. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 12:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Some responses to Benny's list

Of the 8-9 Dylan biographies I have looked through there is not much on this song in particular other than one sentence or one isolated paragraph takes on Watchtower. The definitive reading is still the 40-page Zak article about this song already in the Wikipedia article. Of the books in Benny's list above of possible sources, the book Cover Me has an interesting chapter about Watchtower from pages 56-62 which I'll quote below:

• Quote from Cover Me: "When Hendrix first heard (Watchtower) is a matter of some debate. ...his publicist... Goldstein, says he played it for him at a Greenwich village party before Dylan's album John Wesley Harding was even released", p 58.

• The chapter from Cover Me ends by stating that covers were a niche genre in the 1960s which were fading in importance, even though Hendrix made an exception for Watchtower, p 62.

• The passage from the David Yaffe book on Watchtower is very short stating: "One of the songs, "All Along the Watchtower", would be turned into an anthem of 1968 by no less a musical trailblazer than Jimi Hendrix and would eventually becomes Dylan's own most performed song, done in the Jimi style. But at the time he sounded, at all of twenty-six, too old, or perhaps too mature, to be a magpie anymore. He sounded more like a preservationist, a labor historian, a minimalist. His icons (Woody lay dyin,) were no longer of this earth," p 18.

• At the end of his book, Yaffe lists Watchtower on his list of the 70 best Dylan tunes in his opinion, p 131.

• The Margotin book has a 2 page review of the song on pp 288-289, with some interesting pre-comments about the album as a whole stating that it was the last Dylan album to be released in both mono and stereo, pp 281. Regarding the lyrics, Margotin states: "It is easy to guess who they (the two horsemen) are and what they symbolize. The joker is the songwriter himself, entertaining the crowds and the one who not long ago was the spokesman for a protest movement of complacent progressives. The thief is Albert Grossman (and the music industry as a whole) who sees Dylan only as a moneymaking machine. In the first chorus, Dylan sings, 'Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig the earth.' The 'laborers' could be the critics with their shop pens.," p 288.

The Zak article still seems to be the most knowledgeable source for Watchtower. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Closing this peer review as there don't seem to be any further suggestions being put forward. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:29, 25 August 2022 (UTC)