Go bold or go home, right? For my 16th pick in the Covers Draft, I will go bold and take a different cover of the song that underlies the #1 pick in the draft.
All Along The Watchtower by XTC (1978, on White Music)
Originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan, 1967
This cover is one of my all time favorites for many reasons. The main attraction for me is the fact that in writing the cover, XTC took complete ownership of the song. This isn't Bob Dylan's AATW (or Jimi's, for that matter), but rather a mixture of dissonant keyboards, a screaming harmonica, and a completely frenetic Andy Partridge stuttering his way through a complete reimagination of a classic. Gone is the familiar three chord riff, replaced by altogether alien bass line that jumps around almost aimlessly, but never threatens to sound anything at all like Bob Dylan. When you first hear it, it can be a bit jarring, but it certainly grew on me very quickly. And here's XTC, who not only had the stones to cover All Along The Watchtower on their first album, not only to take that cover completely out to left field, but to then say, "Yep, we nailed it" and never put another cover on any of their subsequent 13 studio albums. This is probably a love-it-or-hate-it pick (and probably plenty of the latter), but it certainly belongs on my island.
