/lit/ - Literature

There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Business men they drink my wine
Plowman 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 have 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.

Any Dylan fanboys on /lit/? What are your thoughts on All Along The Watchtower? Do you prefer the Hendrix version? Was/is it Dylan's greatest work? Thoughts on Dylan or cool tidbits to share?

To me, the words describe a kind of meta story, of mankind's attempts to transcend himself and how that all shakes out. It's commonly observed that the structure of the song suggest a sort of cyclical nature to the story, that what is happening will continue to go on and on without end. A joker and a thief to me are romantic and pragmatic nature of the human being. Two ways of being, two meta copes, if you will. The joker sees the futility of it all and laughs about it but doing so never gets him anywhere, he is not laughing when he pines for a way out. The thief is the pragmatist, he steals what he needs to survive, he tells the joker to relax. Bids him to trust in himself. The fact that the joker is looking for a way out suggests to me that the two riders' approach is blind. They can not see the tower. They only know there must be something in the wilderness of it all. Something.

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