“All Along the Watchtower”

[asterroc]

In case you missed it, the BSG "Final Five" theme is a cover of the Dylan song "All Along the Watchtower". From the iTunes snippits, the Dylan original is as miserable as all Dylan, the Hendrix cover is pretty good, and there are a plethora of other versions I didn't listen to. According to Wikipedia, 11 versions in total. iTunes offers 150 versions total, but that includes multiple versions by the same artists.

Ages ago the_xtina found a page that posted billions and billions of covers of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in mp3 format. Well now I'm looking for the same for "All Along the Watchtower". Anyone got?

Comments

Re: a capella, etc.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Thanks, received it in my inbox, though the actual downlaoding and listening will have to wait until I get home later tonight.

Edit: I've been in choruses off and on since 5th grade (circa 1988). My 15 minutes of choral fame was in around 7th grade when my middle school chorus sang backup on Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall.

Re: a capella, etc.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Pete Seeger? Awesome!

I'm not sure what my analogous 15 minutes would be. I haven't performed in Carnegie Hall, although I have in the Kennedy Center a couple of times (not as a soloist!). A youth orchestra I was in once did a concert series with Bob McGrath of Sesame Street (one of those 'young person's guide to the orchestra' concerts, in which Bob at one point accidentally described a harp as being the only instrument with 47 pedals and 7 strings :P :) ).

Re: a capella, etc.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Heh, you must either be older than me or else a fan of folk music, as my generation usually does not know Pete Seeger. :) I also was in a chorus in a music and art summer camp for a while that rented out Carnegie Hall for a big 50th anniversary bash and the chorus sang for that - to me it's not "really" performing in Carnegie Hall b/c it was just an unknown private group renting it out.

Regarding my sense of pitch, I can usually tell when I'm off-key, but I can't always tell if I'm too high or low, and I can't always correct it. I do always know which part is mine though, so my current chorale director puts me in the back row so I can keep the louder people in the front row on the correct part. :-P Sometimes I feel like they're amplifying my voice.

Another example of my sense of pitch (or something related) is when I try to say the few words I know in Chinese (my mother's family is Chinese). I can always tell whether I am saying the words correctly or not (usually closer to not), but much of the time I am unable to correct what is coming out of my mouth/larynx. I can hear the difference between subtle inflections, but I can't make my body create them. Some day I would like to try to learn Chinese; I expect I would be much better at understanding it than speaking it.

Re: a capella, etc.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Well, 1988-9 was junior year of high school, so a few years older, yes,...and yes, I'm a fan of folk music...but my parents are also Pete Seeger fans. (It has not escaped my attention that there may be a causal connection or two in there somewhere. :) )

As for "renting out" Carnegie Hall--that's what everyone does that performs there, I presume, so I'm not sure that disqualifies you.

I usually get put in the back row (or on one end) simply because I'm tall, but my sense of pitch is generally quite good.

Interesting about your experience with Chinese. I studied Mandarin for a year or so when I was about 12, so I can read a page of Pinyin (with tones marked) with decent pronunciation while having (sadly) at this point hardly any idea what I'm saying. It's an interesting language: the grammar is trivial but learning to read (or, worse, write) is a major pain.