All Along the Watchtower

Almost 60 years later, it still mystifies

Just five years after Dylan began his music career, his life changed forever when he survived a motorcycle crash in 1966. How he changed can be heard by comparing the album released just previous to the event, Blonde on Blonde, and his next album, John Wesley Harding.

Blonde on Blonde, one of rock’s first double albums, was the third in what has been described as a trilogy of albums following his then scandalous break from performing traditional acoustic to an electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (the focus of a new biopic, A Complete Unknown). After the accident, Dylan would revert back to a more traditional folkie style on John Wesley Harding. Released in December of 1967, it percolated for more than a year while he workshopped new ideas with musicians who would become The Band (The Basement Tapes). His new sound incorporated more American roots musical styles and would become a template for what we now call “Americana.”

One of those songs has been called his most enigmatic, most mysterious, most covered, and least understood: “All Along the Watchtower.”

Dylan used spare instrumentation: only an acoustic guitar, harmonica, bass, and drums. Three chords are repeated cyclically. The three cryptic verses (no chorus) seem to be chronologically out of order. There have been countless attempts at interpreting the song, ranging from biblical references to a warning of the coming cultural revolution. And then there are the song’s interpreters who have reinvented it so well that Dylan himself today plays a cover of a cover.

The unusual structure of the narrative was noted by Christopher Ricks, an English Literature Professor, who commented that "All Along the Watchtower" is a typical example of Dylan's audacity at manipulating chronological time: "at the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, and as if the myth began again." He feels that as an artist he officiates as ‘Watchtower’ to warn people, in some sort of a way like the old biblical Prophets once did, that this world is doomed. (www.keesdegraaf.com)

One of the most common interpretations of "All Along the Watchtower" connects to the Bible, specifically the Old Testament's Isaiah. Per Bible Gateway, Isaiah 21: 5 – 9, in part reads, "Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees. When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently." (www.grunge.com)

Reading Dylan’s words to ‘Watchtower’ can still send chills down my spine. I can’t pinpoint why. It could be due to the many cover versions I’ve heard over the years that treat it like an anthem, or just the unnerving imagery that Dylan conveys in his reading:

“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

The website songmeaningsandfacts.com describes the narrative this way: The watchtower itself becomes a character, a symbol of vigilance, power, or perhaps impending judgment. It’s a place where the lofty keep their gaze affixed on the horizon, unmoved by the passing of the meek. And yet, there’s an undercurrent of anticipation, a sense that something is about to give way, as ‘the hour is getting late.’ In the climactic stanza, the ambience shifts from the solidity of the watchtower to the obscure periphery where ‘a wildcat did growl.’ The unsettling growl surges with foreboding—it signals an impending event that’s both wild and inevitable. This powerful image is sharpened by the emergence of ‘two riders approaching,’ a clear nod to the inexorable approach of fate or, perhaps, revolution.

This interpretation, taken in the context of the year it was released, 1967, could very well have meant the coming ‘revolution’ against what were considered established conventions. The so-called “Summer of Love” was imminent, but instead was displaced by riots fomented in the inner cities between Black citizens and white police officers.

Was Dylan warning us of this ‘fate’?

In the fall of 1959, Dylan moved from his hometown of Hibbing, MN to enroll at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He lived in an area called Dinkytown near campus. By 1961, he had already moved to New York City, and the rest, as they say, is history. But an urban legend still exists to this day. An old water tower called the “Witches Hat,” built on the highest point in Minneapolis, could have been seen from Dylan’s flat. Was it his inspiration for writing “All Along the Watchtower” six years later? Or could he have written those puzzling lyrics during his short stay in the Twin Cities?

And then there is the version that many have mistaken for the original.

In 1995, Dylan described his reaction to hearing Jimi Hendrix's version, released less than a year after John Wesley Harding: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."

Musicology scholar Albin Zak thinks Dylan’s original incorporates a strong blues influence from his affinity for the blues of Robert Johnson. He suggests that the Hendrix version is much closer in its blues style to the songs and style of Muddy Waters: "If Dylan's crying blues is reminiscent of Robert Johnson, Hendrix's shout calls to mind Muddy Waters and his 'deep tone with a heavy beat'."

In my mind, Hendrix captured the sense of dread through his otherworldly howling guitar as effectively as Dylan produced with his harmonica. But it’s useless to compare. The fact that Dylan to this day performs ‘Watchtower’ live more than any song in his catalog speaks volumes. For countless musicians, the song has become a raging set-closer or encore. Perhaps what’s so inspiring is its simplicity combined with the unsettling lyrics. Dylan has never weighed in on its meaning. Even so, I get chills every time I hear ANY version.

References:

https://www.keesdegraaf.com/index.php/179/bob-dylans-all-along-the-watchtower-a-lyric-analysis-part-1

https://www.grunge.com/1173684/the-philosophical-meaning-behind-bob-dylans-all-along-the-watchtower/

https://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/all-along-the-watchtower-unraveling-the-enigmatic-anthem-of-change/

“All Along the Watchtower” Lyrics, Copyright © 1968 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1996 by Dwarf Music

https://www.history.com/news/1967-summer-riots-detroit-newark-kerner-commission

Dolen, John (September 29, 1995). "A Midnight Chat with Bob Dylan". Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. pp. 1E, 8E.

Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix: Juxtaposition and Transformation "All Along the Watchtower" ALBIN J. ZAK III, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jams.2004.57.3.599

“Witches Hat Tower” Prospect Park, Minneapolis