All Along the Watchtower" is a song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It is notable for the fact that Dylan has performed this song more often in concert than any of his other compositions. It has been estimated that by the end of 2007, Dylan had su
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ng the song 1,748 times. It is also notable for the number of times it has been covered by other artists in different genres.
Commenting on the songs on his recently released album John Wesley Harding, in an interview published in the folk music magazine Sing Out! in October 1968, Dylan told John Cohen and Happy Traum:
"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. These melodies on John Wesley Harding lack this traditional sense of time. 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.
Christopher Ricks has commented on All Along the Watchtower...at the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, and as if the myth began again.
The song was recorded by the artist as a quiet, menacing three-chord folk song on November 6, 1967, at Columbia Studio A, Nashville, Tennessee. Accompanying Dylan who was on acoustic guitar and harmonica were Charlie McCoy on bass guitar, and Kenneth Buttrey on drums. The producer was Bob Johnston, who had been Dylan's producer since the album Highway 61 Revisited in 1965. The song was released on Dylan's equally quiet and sparse album John Wesley Harding, on December 27, 1967.
Dylan, recovering from a motorcycle accident which had marked a shift in his career, had been seen reading the Bible on a daily basis. As with many of the lyrics to the songs on this album, the words to "Watchtower" contain biblical and apocalyptic references.
The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5-9, contains the following: "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 such 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."
The song depicts a conversation between two people, a "joker" and a "thief", about the difficulties of getting by in life ("There's too much confusion"). The joker is concerned about losing his property, while the thief observes that some individuals among them aren't taking life as seriously as they should: "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke." The joker suggests that time is running out. In the last verse, the viewpoint of the song switches abruptly. The ruling princes stand guard in a watchtower over their women and servants as an unnamed pair of riders approach amidst ominous sounds.
In recent years, Dylan in live performance has taken to singing the first verse again at the end of the song. As Michael Gray notes in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, "Dylan chooses to end in a way that at once reduces the song's apocalyptic impact and cranks up its emphasis on the artist's own centrality. Repeating the first stanza as the last means Dylan now ends with the words 'None of them along the line/Know what any of it is worth' (and this is sung with a prolonged, dark linger on that word 'worth')."
In addition to his original recording, Dylan has released four different live recordings of the song on the following albums: Before the Flood, Bob Dylan at Budokan, Dylan & The Dead and MTV Unplugged.
Other artist that covered the song were Jimi Hendrix, U2, Dave Matthews Band, Prince, Dionysis Savvopoulos, Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Bear McCreary, Brian Ferry, Pearl Jam, as well as many others.
From Wikipedia
"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.