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Song Stories

“Thela Hun Ginjeet”

King Crimson | 1981

When you've almost been mugged, you may want to get in touch with the authorities. Not guitarist Adrian Belew, who instead returned to the studio to tell his King Crimson mates about a dangerous encounter, which is retold in "Thela Hun Ginjeet." "I walked down one of the streets, and there was illegal gambling going on," Belew recalled. "It was done by a group of Rastafarian guys -- pretty tough looking -- and [they’d] gathered around me. They thought I was an undercover policeman -- I had short hair at the time. They were about to kill me; I don’t know how I talked my way out of it. I ran into the control room, and was telling Robert [Fripp] the story. Meanwhile, he had whispered to the engineer to record it, and that’s what you hear on the record." The song's curious title is an anagram of "heat in the jungle."

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“Cult of Personality”
Living Colour | 1973
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“Emerald”
Thin Lizzy | 1976

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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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