The Music

As the Fleet approaches the Ionian nebula, four people, Saul Tigh, Samuel Anders, Tory Foster and Galen Tyrol, begin hearing fragments of strange music that only they can hear. The music becomes more distinct and distracting as the Fleet gets closer to the nebula.

Once the Fleet arrives at the Ionian nebula, the Music reaches a piercing shrill. The Colonials affected not only hear the music complete, but begin to add lyrics as well. As the Fleet plunges into darkness, losing electrical power for reasons unknown, the music compels the four to meet in a isolated room.

The four are able to assemble the lyric fragments with the intact music to form a strange song. The musical experience is associated with a "switch going off" in the minds of the four, who suddenly become aware they are Cylons. The source or cause of the music is not known (Crossroads, Part II).

At the end of the episode the song starts playing as background music for the viewers to hear. These are the complete lyrics that are sung:

There must be some way out of here

Said the joker to the thief

There's too much confusion

I can't get no relief

Businessmen they drink my wine

Plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line

Know what any of it is worth

No reason to get excited

The thief he kindly spoke

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

So let us not talk falsely now

The hour is getting late

All along the watchtower

All along the watchtower

Notes

• The music is, indeed, a version of Bob Dylan's song, "All Along the Watchtower," specially arranged by series composer Bear McCreary, the lyrics sung by his brother, Brendan McCreary (known professionally as Bt4).
• The song is not intended to indicate that the Colonials have picked up an Earth communication. Series executive producer Ron D. Moore considers the song to be an invention created by a Colonial citizen in a curious parallel to what had or will develop on Earth. The series creators have intentionally avoided citing whether Battlestar Galactica occurs in the series' Earth's past, present, or future.
  • Nonetheless, the music suggests a stronger-than-before thematic connection to Earth, as it is a recognizable song shared with the real-life Earth, and accompanies the first sequence in the series to ever show Earth.
• According to Bear McCreary, the song will be on the Season 3 soundtrack.
• Over 25 notable bands have performed cover versions of "All Along The Watchtower"; the definitive cover was performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Many people are even unaware that his version was not the original.
• Bob Dylan has indicated that the events in the song's lyrics are "in a rather reverse order", beginning logically in time with the "All Along The Watchtower" verse and ending with the now-famous opening lines, "'There must be some way out of here,' said the Joker to the Thief."
• The version used in the series omits the final stanza:

  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

External Links

• An analysis of "All Along the Watchtower" at Reason to Rock
• "All Along the Watchtower", sung by Bob Dylan, at iTunes
• "All Along the Watchtower", sung by Jimi Hendrix, at iTunes