‘All Along the Watchtower’ – Memoir of a 60s revolutionary

“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” — Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower”.

Mike Hyde outmatches our expectations for the memoirs of a student revolutionary.

He does not tell us what the Sixties meant, but shows us what they were like through explorations of the drifts between friendship and comradeship, and the giddy mix of sexual politics as ideology and intimacy.

Throughout, he recreates what it felt like at the time – to be battoned into unconsciousness; to burn one’s draft card; to hear now legendary lyrics for the first time. Holding these strands together is Schopenhauer’s rule for fine writing: have something to say.

Humphrey McQueen