Naming
To match RDM's description of what the music's source is, the article is not named after the song title to avoid direct association with the "Earthly" version. RDM notes this song was, through some mystical source, created by someone on the Colonies. Until someone actually uses the song title in an episode, it's best to do that. A redirect with the song title points to here. --Spencerian 10:13, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
Lyrics
I added the All along the watchtower line to the lyrics. Oddly, this line is repeated twice in place of the complete third verse, which is missing from the show.--RUSnooky 00:30, 28 March 2007 (CDT)
The Music in Context
There are a couple of things about the music I find curious in context with the show. First off, as I mention above, the third verse, with the exception of the title line is completely eliminated from the show. Does this mean the Colonial who wrote it (according to RDM) didn't write this line, or did it just not fit in the context of the show. That verse is:
- "All along the watchtower, princes kept the view"
- "While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too."
- "Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,"
- "Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl."
Also, if you watch the scene again, the lyrics below happen just as Lee finds Kara
- "There are many here among us"
- "Who feel that life is but a joke"
- "But you and I, we've been through that"
- "And this is not our fate"
- Maybe these verses will be heard in Season 4? (Which would, in all honesty, make sense if RDM wanted to use all the lyrics.) -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate 05:45, 28 March 2007 (CDT)
- Damn. Now I'll have to download this episode and tear it apart. Interesting find. --Spencerian 08:34, 16 April 2007 (CDT)
- Personally, I feel too much focus is given to the lyrical content of the song. While I am sure there is some significance to the lyrics, I feel their use was largely a maguffin. The recurring theme, which McCreary overlays during the performance of "All Along the Watchtower," is heard predominantly in "Heeding the Call," the actual piece of music McCreary composed for the sequence in which the Four "turn on." It is this same piece (I'm not a music expert, so I don't know if it's a theme, leitmotif, or what) which Kara plays on the piano, and the notes for which Hera has been scribbling. Starbuck is seen in Daybreak I comparing the actual notation of that music with a series of well known mathematical proofs.
- The connection between music (acoustics) and physics and mathematics is well known, well studied, and well established. Therefore, it has been my conclusion since No Exit that The Music is not "All Along the Watchtower" in its lyrical content, or as arranged by Bob Dylan, but rather, it is the additions McCreary added to the piece; and that the Music is, in fact, the series of equations necessary to facilitate "Cylon Resurrection." It is likely to me that Anders wrote "All Along the Watchtower" in its Bob Dylan form, but composed the "Heeding the Call" additions to McCreary's version (as we hear in the closing moments of Crossroads) as a way to retain the equations for Resurrection. Remember, they only speak the lines from the first stanza of "All Along the Watchtower" in Crossroads while in their dazed state, but the actual music they hear which "turns them on" was from the track, "Heeding the Call," which is the same piece Kara's father taught her as a child (which tells me that Dreilide Thrace was poor Daniel). Then again, that's just my hypothesis. Rag0094 07:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
iTunes
Are they goint to put this on iTunes anytime soon?--Snorkel378 00:03, 16 April 2007 (CDT)Snorkel378
- It won't come out until the soundtrack does, which is sometime in August. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate 00:11, 16 April 2007 (CDT)
Possible origin
According to the Revelations podcast, the rhythm of the Colonial emergency locator beacon signal detected by Starbuck's Viper matched the tune of the Music. The Final Four first started hearing the music soon before Starbuck arrived in her Viper, and when the Four started hearing the Music in Revelations they were drawn towards the Viper. I suspect that the Viper is broadcasting or relaying a signal which causes the Music to be heard, is there enough evidence to warrent including this theory in the article? -- Gordon Ecker 03:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
- Seems like it would be warranted... -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 03:40, 27 June 2008 (UTC)