Tuesday, March 15, 2011

There must be some kinda way out of here ...

"There must be some kinda way out of here"
Said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief ..."

Lyrics by Bob Dylan. Song covered numerous times, most notably by Jimi Hendrix




I'm not posting this for any particular reason. No tie-in to a current political or cultural event. The excerpt I quoted above certainly describes how I feel sometimes about work, life, the world ... whatever. But, I'm just posting it because it's a damn good song.

I just heard Hendrix's version on the radio the other day and realized how much I love the song. Dylan's version is great as well, but Hendrix imbued the song with a fire that even Dylan had to acknowledge. Dylan has even admitted that the manner in which Hendrix played the song informs his own performances since that time.

The song has obvious allusions to the Bible (as do other Dylan songs), but what strikes me is the out-of-order manner in which the lyrics unfold. The thematic start of the song is at the end, both lyrically and musically. Kinda like you would expect if Quentin Tarantino wrote a rock song. This propels the song forward and gives one a sense of anticipation or urgency for it to repeat. It's this sense of bottled-up repetition that makes it perfect as a recurring plot element in season 3 and 4 of Battlestar Galactica and really an encapsulation of the series as a whole.

"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."

This is a performance by Bear McCreary, the composer for the series, with a little help from Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck):



1 comment:

CyberKitten said...

Very cool. Loved that Starbuck was adding her skills to the evening....