After the pathos of last year's triumphant Pavement tour, Stephen Malkmus clears the air with a jovial rocker from Mirror Traffic, his superb upcoming collaboration with producer Beck. It's faster and lighter than most of the album, streamlining the Jicks' mellow-gold West Coast approach while Malkmus races to the jokey hook line: "I know what the senator wants / What the senator wants is a blooow joooob." But there's also time for a poignant Neil Young-style guitar outro and a dazed half-spoken reflection about "smoking weed in our truck."

Listen to "Senator":

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“All Along the Watchtower”

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."