So, John Lydon: Will There Be a Public Image Ltd. Reunion?

There's been a lot of hubub today about Johnny Rotten's fight with Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke backstage at a Barcelona festival. So much talk has been devoted to accusations of racism and details of the melee that few are focusing on what began the spat: Okereke supposedly walked up to Lydon and asked him about the possibility of a Public Image Ltd. reunion. Accounts differ on what happened after this, but who cares? It's a perfectly legitimate inquiry. The Sex Pistols put on a fine show these days, but seeing as they only have one album to draw from the set list is pretty limited. PiL lasted 14 years and eight albums. Jah Wobble and the many, many other PiL alumi certainly have the time to get back onstage — and who wouldn't want to hear "Rise" live again? So, Johnny, what do you think? Good idea, or are am I in for a brutal beating now?

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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