# Bob Dylan **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561 "2003-06-22T08:17:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bokap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9adbd/32.png) [@bokap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bokap)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/1 "2003-06-22T08:17:22Z")
I have always liked listening to Bob Dylan. I like the way he phrases and I like his music a lot. I just don’t have much of a clue to what he is singing about. For instance, what is All Along the Watch Tower about. Is there a web page where his lyrics are discussed. Thanks, Bob G ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/2 "2003-06-22T10:25:05Z")
This one is so easy that I’m simply not going to do the work for you. Have you put “Bob Dylan lyrics discussion” or some such into Google? You couldn’t have. No, no one is online discussing perhaps the most famous lyricist of the past 40 years. Of course not. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/3 "2003-06-22T10:26:08Z")
Ok, so now I’ll be a bit nicer about it. People around here really hate to get the questions that could be answered with a simple Google search or three. It’s kind of a waste of time. Now you know. It really is a good place. Welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/4 "2003-06-22T11:41:44Z")
Welcome to SDMB **bokap** , from another Dylan fan. If I may make a suggestion: Why not take **Cardinal** up on ]his suggestion (brusque as it may have been;)), then come back and start a thread about **Watchtower** and what you think it means, and see if we agree or disagree? Anyway, welcome. Good to have you with us. Quasi ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/5 "2003-06-23T10:58:57Z")
Administrator speaking: Y’know, y’all need to lighten up. A Google search on “Bob Dylan” gave me about 668,000 hits, and the first few pages were not relevant. When I refined the search by adding “lyrics discussion Watchtower”, I had over 400 hits, and the first three I looked at were crapola. I get discouraged when I get too many hits, and coming here to ask for discussion (or to ask for a website that others have found useful) is perfectly appropriate. You who are experts in Google searches: not everyone is. Don’t jump down someone’s throat because their searches haven’t been productive, or because they didn’t know how to refine their searches. And, since when have we forbidden discussion here, simply because it’s discussed elsewhere? We’d wipe out the entire Great Debates forum at a blow. You mean to say that Buffy or Star Trek or Lord of the Rings are discussed in our forum? Oh, no, **Cardinal** , I’ll wipe 'em all out because they’re discussed in great detail in other websites. Bullshit. **bokap** , you are welcomed here, and I hope that some members will respond to your question and ignore **Cardinal** ’s rude and unthinking comments. I personally am not a big Dylan fan, or I’d start the ball rolling. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/6 "2003-06-23T11:56:54Z")
Welcome to the boards, **bokap**. Have you been listening to Bob for long? Do you like other songs he’s done? I’ll always be a fan of Desolation Row and She Belongs to Me, personally. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/7 "2003-06-23T12:37:43Z")
“You mean to say that Buffy or Star Trek or Lord of the Rings are discussed in our forum? Oh, no, Cardinal, I’ll wipe 'em all out because they’re discussed in great detail in other websites.” Promises, promises. ---
**Author:** ![greenphan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c37758/32.png) [@greenphan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenphan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/8 "2003-06-23T12:40:18Z")
I absolutely adore Dylan. The man is seriously an amazing poet. As for the meaning of “All Along the Watchtower”…I always assumed it was about the loss of something, probably the traditional ways of life. for instance: “Business men, they drink my wine, plow and dig my earth. None of them along the line, know what any of it is worth”. Perhaps I’ve been to one too many Farm Aids, but to me, it sounds like he’s bemoaning the loss of traditional living and farming. “All along the watchtower, princes kept the view While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.” The preceeding lines, as near as I can tell, mean that everyone is serving someone (and not in the sense that you find in Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”). Everyone’s a foot-servant for the prince, who watches what he’s taken like a hawk. So yeah…my take on the “…Watchtower” is that people (businessmen and princes) came and took the traditional life and incorporated it and its people into something different. But then again, it is Dylan. It could just be a random smattering of words that happen to rhyme. –greenphan ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/9 "2003-06-23T15:36:52Z")
The reason I like _Watchtower_ is the reason I like most of Dylan’s work: No wasted words: We create things, but have no idea of their worth, and no one’s listening to the voice trying to tell us this. That said, I also like the “story” songs such as _The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll_ and _Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts_ to name just two. **Dantheman** , _She Belongs To Me_ is also one of my favorites. You can just feel the admiration and the wonder at how this woman can evoke all these emotions from the singer, and how befuddled he is at being such a fool over her. Dylan is like an abstract painter, his words can mean whatever you think they **should** mean, and they can be personalized to your taste. Gonna go post another Dylan thread. Hope to see y’all post in it. Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/10 "2003-06-23T15:53:23Z")
I’ve been a Dylan fan for nearly forty years, and half the time I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. But you know what? _It doesn’t matter!_ I just love the way he puts words together. One of my favorite Dylan tunes is “Highway 61 Revisted.” Consider this verse: “Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King I got forty red white and blue shoe strings And a thousand telephones that don’t ring Do you know where I can get rid of these things And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son And he said yes I think it can be easily done Just take everything down to Highway 61.” WTF?? But I love that lyric! I wouldn’t change a word of it. Or consider these verses from two of the tunes on Dylan’s latest, _Love and Theft_ “My mother was a daughter of a wealthy farmer My father was a traveling salesman, I never met him When my mother died, my uncle took me in - he ran a funeral parlor He did a lot of nice things for me and I won’t forget him” (from “Poor Boy”) “My grandfather was a duck trapper He could do it with just dragnets and ropes My grandmother could sew new dresses out of old cloth I don’t know if they had any dreams or hopes” (from “Floater (Too Much to Ask)”) What beautiful little vignettes ! Just kind of a stream of consciousness thing in the songs as the narrator thinks about his family. But why was granddad a duck trapper? Why did the uncle run a funeral parlor? Who knows? But it doesn’t matter. It felt like a great weight had been lifted from me the day I quit trying to figure out what songs like “Drifter’s Escape” were about. I just let Bobby Z’s words flow over me like a refreshing stream. The other day, my wife and I were driving along and had _Love and Theft_ in the cd player. She said to me, “What’s wrong with you? You’ve got such a goofy grin on your face!” And I said, “Oh, nothing. I’m just listening to Dylan’s words.” ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/11 "2003-06-23T17:48:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by greenphan \* > But then again, it is Dylan. It could just be a random smattering of words that happen to rhyme. But then again, it is Dylan. If the words don’t rhyme on their own, he can just mangle the pronunciation until they do. I’ll see your _Desolation Row_ and _She Belongs to Me_ and raise you _Idiot Wind_ and _You’re Gonna Make me Lonesome When You Go_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/12 "2003-06-23T19:21:55Z")
It’s not that hard to find a discussion of the lyrics in “All Along the Watchtower.” [Here’s one](http://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/watchtower.html), admittedly a not very good one, from the page page of Google. At least this guy gets the lyrics right. Compare: the correct version > [@](#): > > None of them along the line > Know what any of it is worth. to the close but no cigar ([http://www.lyricsdomain.com/lyrics/21365/](http://www.lyricsdomain.com/lyrics/21365/)): > [@](#): > > None of them know along the line > What any of this is worth to ([http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi-hendrix/17571.htm](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi-hendrix/17571.htm)): > [@](#): > > None would ever compromise > Nobody of this world to ([leoslyrics.com](http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=fOweY2pROVQ%3D)): > [@](#): > > None were level on the mind > Nobody up at his word to ([http://www.kamakuranet.ne.jp/~hendrix/all\_along.html](http://www.kamakuranet.ne.jp/~hendrix/all_along.html)): > [@](#): > > None will level on the line, > Nobody of it is worth No wonder nobody can figure them lyrics out. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/13 "2003-06-23T19:51:55Z")
Hey, I just realized something: Almost every phrase Dylan has written/sung can be used as a sig line, ya’ll! 😃 Okay! Dylan Festival! My house. Sunday. BYOB. (For me, it’ll be **Boone’s Farm Strawberry** ( **SHUP, dammit!😃** ) or Old Milwaukee beer (in the can) turned upside down and opened with an old-fashioned beer can opener, then turned right-side up, pop-top flipped and drunk down fast. Solid food: Ramen Noodles or White Castles. For those who can afford it, **Domino’s** , but we gotta give 'em the wrong directions so that the pizza will be free when they get here. Special guests other than Bob? The Byrds Rick Nelson The Hollies The Box Tops (“I Shall Be Released”) The Dead Thunderclap The Turtles Jimi (of course!) The Stones Okay, okay! I’ll even include **Mouse and The Traps** for the song _Your Public Execution_, and you get extra credit if you can tell me **why** I even included this group when that isn’t even a Dylan tune! Okay, **Barry MacGuire** and **Kingston Trio** (all versions): Y’all are invited too! Man! Did I just hijack a thread, or what??? :D:D:D Thanks, **bokap**! Quasi ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/14 "2003-06-23T19:56:53Z")
Oh yeah… forgot. Funny lookin’ cigarettes are allowed too. 😃 Q ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/15 "2003-06-23T20:06:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > \*\* > to ([http://www.kamakuranet.ne.jp/~hendrix/all\_along.html](http://www.kamakuranet.ne.jp/~hendrix/all_along.html)): > > ## quote: > > ## None will level on the line, Nobody of it is worth > > \*\* To be fair, since that’s from a Jimi Hendrix lyric site, that **is** what Hendrix sings in his version. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/16 "2003-06-23T21:00:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Quasimodem \* > Okay, okay! I’ll even include **Mouse and The Traps** for the song _Your Public Execution_, and you get extra credit if you can tell me **why** I even included this group when that isn’t even a Dylan tune! Postcards of the hanging? ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/17 "2003-06-23T23:52:20Z")
**Please**! Don’t tell me I stumped y’all with the above tease just because I’m **old**? Okay, I’m not being exact: The name of the tune from **Mouse and The Traps** is **A** \* Public Execution\*, not **Your** _Public Execution_, sue me! 😃 But ya still gotta tell me why I included them in my invitation! Give Y’all till midnight. Q ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/18 "2003-06-24T01:08:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Quasimodem \* > _Okay, I’m not being exact: The name of the tune from **Mouse and The Traps** is **A** Public Execution_, not **Your** _Public Execution_, sue me! 😃 But ya still gotta tell me why I included them in my invitation! > \*\* Are you looking for something more specific than that the song is a Dylan pastiche (notable ripping off “Like a Rolling Stone”)? ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/19 "2003-06-24T01:28:13Z")
**Biffy** got it with 2 and a half hours to spare! That’s right, it was a big controversy years ago, because ol’ **Mouse** sounded so much like Bob, that people were wondering if it might have **been** Bob! Thanks, **Biffy** , and welcome (late) to SDMB! So who you bringin’ to the party? 😉 Q ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561/20 "2003-06-24T01:36:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Quasimodem \* > \*\* > **Dantheman** , _She Belongs To Me_ is also one of my favorites. You can just feel the admiration and the wonder at how this woman can evoke all these emotions from the singer, and how befuddled he is at being such a fool over her. > \*\* There’s a beautiful, simple, black-and-white video of three members of the Grateful Dead performing this song acoustically (of course). It’s magnificent. By the way, I’m reminded now of what Bruce Springsteen once said of Bob, perhaps during the latter’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Something like: “The way Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylan/183561.md?page=2)