Pop Song 293 of 500 ' All along the watchtower' Bob Dylan 1967

Pop Song 293 of 500 ' All along the watchtower' Bob Dylan 1967

The lyrics feature a conversation between a joker and a thief, whilst they ride towards a watchtower.. Reviewers have pointed out that the lyrics in "All Along the Watchtower" echo lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9:

Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield./For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth./And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed./..And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

Dylan said

I haven't fulfilled the balladeer's job. A balladeer can sit down and sing three songs for an hour and a half .. it can all unfold to you... (For example, as) with the third verse of "The Wicked Messenger", which opens it up, and then the time schedule takes a jump and soon the song becomes wider ... The same thing is true of the song "All Along the Watchtower", which opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order

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
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