Answers in the Wind
Bob Dylan’s music wrestled with good and evil throughout his career, but his 1967 track “All Along the Watchtower” carries a heavy warning for those who wait passively in the face of coming disaster.
By Toby Jaffe
Bob Dylan recorded “Blowin’ in the Wind” during the summer of 1962. It was featured a year later on Dylan’s second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Inspired by the protest folk of Woody Guthrie, “Blowin’ in the Wind” is a song that reflects the youthful idealism, traumatic awakenings, and rapid societal change of the early 1960s and the late 20th century more broadly. As is often the case with Dylan’s work, the song is universal and existential and as such remains relevant today.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
As he will do throughout the song, Dylan uses the first verse to ask a series of questions, in this case related to struggle, suffering, and violence. We acknowledge the effort and strain of the “man” who walks “many roads” and ask why his humanity and self-sacrifice have been erased. Similarly, we acknowledge the tireless effort of the “white dove” and protest that she has been given no time at all to recharge or relax. We know that life on earth is precious and that “cannonballs” are tools designed only to end lives—so why do we keep using them?
“The answer,” Dylan of course suggests, is in a force of nature which transcends the pettiness of human bigotry and evil: “the wind.” A moral arc that bends toward justice. There is a moral conscience here, a clear-eyed sense of right and wrong. Dylan is ultimately singing of God and His righteous judgment.
The rest of the song carries on in much the same manner.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
As has quite often been the case throughout Dylan’s songwriting career, “Blowin’ in the Wind” contains allusions to the Bible. Take, for instance, the line “Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have/Before he can hear people cry?”, which is borrowed from Ezekiel 12:1-2, in which God says to Ezekiel, “Son of Man, you dwell in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.”
There is a sense that the “wind” brings with it an all-knowing righteous moral conscience and that, because it is a natural force, it cannot be stopped nor controlled. The suggestion is that we’d do best to follow it, for there is no other way. For once we have identified what is right, it must triumph over what is wrong.
This would not, however, be anything resembling Bob Dylan’s final word on wind—nor morality, injustice, and the shape of history and time.
Dylan retreated from the public eye. In doing so, he freed himself to explore his artistry strictly on his own terms.
Fast forward four years. Dylan’s artistry and unique, often abrasive personality had made him a major celebrity. He had been constantly on the road and in the public eye since 1963, dealing with a steady, perpetual stream of negative attention and hostility. By 1966, Dylan was a particularly aged 25 years old and had grown tired of all the commotion, hype, and hysteria surrounding him. After a motorcycle crash, Dylan retreated from the public eye. In doing so, he freed himself to explore his artistry strictly on his own terms.
Dylan was, by then, an entirely different artist and human being than he was when he had penned “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He had released five studio albums after Freewheelin’. The first, “The Times They Are a-Changin’” in 1964, mirrored many of its predecessors’ protest themes and point of view. But when his next release, summer 1964’s Another Side of Bob Dylan stepped away from the broader political and social messaging of his previous two albums, some in the folk community and media believed that Dylan had “sold out” and was prisoner to fame and money. This criticism only deepened when Dylan released his folk rock masterpiece Bringing it All Back Home in 1965.
Not only did many of the songs on Bring it All Back Home feature electric guitars (a huge no-no for a “folk singer” at the time), they were also more abstract and ambiguous. And if the lyricism on Bringing it all Back Home was complex, surreal, and iconoclastic, the songs on 1965’s Highway 61 Revisited were all the more so. And after Highway 61 came Blonde on Blonde, another herculean album presenting a mishmash of uncanny allusions, lengthy epics about jilted lovers, and an ever-maturing understanding (or lack thereof—an admission indicating maturity) of the world.
In late 1967, after Dylan’s accident-prompted retreat from the public, came his first release since Blonde on Blonde a year and a half earlier. John Wesley Harding was not like Dylan’s previous three releases, nor was it really quite like the folk albums, such as The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which preceded them—unlike those earliest records, which featured nothing more than Dylan, his acoustic guitar and harmonica, this album featured light backing instrumentation like bass and drums. And whereas Blonde on Blonde was an exuberant and manic post-impressionist painting, John Wesley Harding was stripped-down, direct, and Rockwellian. It is deeply contemplative, reflecting the eighteen-month break between albums—full of stories, mythology, and folktales.
There is an existential quality here, as all seem vulnerable to whatever is coming, no matter their class or status.
It is on John Wesley Harding that we find “All Along the Watchtower,” a song which, like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” explores morality, injustice, and the shape of time. Wind, too, plays a central part here. But in keeping with Dylan’s evolved style, the track is more complex—and perhaps more mature—than its earlier counterpart.
The song is a story that involves two characters, the joker and the thief. The two men converse with one another as they journey towards a watchtower. As they talk, it seems that they are waiting—on an existential level—for, well, something. Perhaps it is a kind of catastrophic event, maybe even the apocalypse; perhaps it is God and salvation. Either way, their waiting is marked by paralyzed passivity.
In the opening lines, it is the joker who speaks:
“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!”
Typically, when we think of a joker or jester figure, we imagine a gregarious, humorous, and happy-go-lucky clown. As such, Dylan’s deific joker seems to have at one point embodied the classic archetype. He was happy to share his “wine” and “earth” with those in the Watchtower out of genuine generosity, humility, and good cheer. He was once as clear-eyed as the narrator in “Blowin’ in the Wind.” But he has become aghast at the ways in which the people of the Watchtower have exploited his generosity and is no longer in much of a mood to laugh or spread cheer. The joker feels that these folks have taken his creations and gifts in a selfish, greedy spirit. He can see the illusions they are chasing and the path they are going down and can imagine nothing but profound destruction, self-inflicted or otherwise. Worse, the joker feels that there is nothing he can do to rectify the situation. He despairs for himself only insofar that he is despairing for all. He struggles to grapple with the notion that pure righteousness—such as the kind espoused in “Blowin’ in the Wind”—is insufficient.
The thief, cynical, bitter, and self-assured, responds to the joker:
“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.”
The thief is not nearly the romantic idealist that the joker is, nor as generous. In fact, the thief urges his counterpart to calm down and let go of his pretenses about the people of the Watchtower. Forget all that stuff about righteousness! Don’t overcomplicate this, he suggests, people are people—they’re not so great, they’re not so innocent, and they have agency to live differently if they so choose. But they choose not to, so that’s their problem. The thief assures the joker that the two of them are enlightened—that they have seen beyond the illusion, and this will save them in the end. If the unenlightened perish, suggests the thief, so be it. They got what’s coming to them. Worry about yourself, joker. Disconnect. Catastrophe is coming, and we can only hope to save ourselves.
The final verse is famously ambiguous, and it is where we once again find “the wind.”
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.
We are treated to a zoomed-out, panoramic view of the “Watchtower.” We see all of its residents from royalty down to “barefoot servants.” There is an existential quality here, as all seem vulnerable to whatever is coming, no matter their class or status. Sure enough, our old friend the wind—not so friendly now, not so morally driven—kicks up, and ominous howling from a wildcat can be heard, suggesting the beginnings—but not the resolution—of the catastrophe hinted at by the joker and the thief.
Isaiah’s prophecy sets the stage for “All Along the Watchtower” in that it presents the people of Babylon, much like Dylan presents the people of the Watchtower, as frivolous and profoundly unprepared for coming catastrophe.
Dylan referred to John Wesley Harding as “the first biblical rock album.” The references most apparent in the case of “All Along the Watchtower” is Isaiah 21 from the Old Testament, as well as some references to the New Testament. These can perhaps deepen our understanding of the song. Isaiah 21 details the coming fall of Babylon according to the prophet Isaiah, who states: “A grievous vision is declared unto me.” “As whirlwinds (“the wind began to howl”) in the south pass through,” he writes, “so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.” The vision continues:
Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink (the essence of the joker’s opening verse): arise, ye princes (“princes kept the view”), and anoint 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 (“two riders were approaching”), a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:
And he cried, A lion (“a wildcat did growl”): My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:
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.
Revelation 16 has a section which reads:
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments (“but you and I, we’ve been through that”), lest he walk naked and they see his shame (“there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke”).
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon (“the hour’s getting late!”).
Isaiah’s prophecy sets the stage for “All Along the Watchtower” in that it presents the people of Babylon, much like Dylan presents the people of the Watchtower, as frivolous and profoundly unprepared for coming catastrophe. The joker’s opening verse and the neutral final verse echo this portrayal. The verse from Revelation 16 corresponds to the lyrics assigned to the thief character in the song.
We live in an age of climate crisis, accelerating technological advancement, stockpiled nuclear weaponry, upward wealth distribution, book bannings, global pandemic, mass shootings, terrorism—etc, etc, etc
Like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “All Along the Watchtower” ponders religiosity, spirituality, and morality in an age of science and supposed rationality and enlightenment. Characters and narrators wait on the deific forces of time, change, and justice. In fact, it can be said that the joker, posited to be Dylan himself, is an older, sadder, and more bitter version of the narrator in “Blowin’ in the Wind.” In “Blowin’ in the Wind,” questions are asked and answered, the inevitable morally righteous “wind” of time and change well on its way. Imagine the joker’s surprise then, when he discovers that the wind in “All Along the Watchtower” is not righteous nor clarifying in any kind of moral sense; that it is instead a harbinger of doom, uncertainty, and despair.
We can also read the joker to be those, generally on the American left, who had entered the 1960s with great ambitions of changing the world but who would find, by the end of the decade, that change was not so straightforward, and that previously heralded solutions would not resolve all the problems. The War in Vietnam created a sense of abject powerlessness, as the American invasion continued unabated despite widespread protests. Now, it’s not exactly that the joker generation’s messaging was being outright ignored; rather it was being co-opted (“businessmen drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth”) and distorted by those with other motives. Where things had once seemed straightforward and pure to the joker, they now seemed entirely incoherent and corrupted.
The thief, then, represents another form of political and spiritual paralysis. He embodies an emerging mode of thinking characterized by a jaded detachment that would become quite prevalent in the decades that followed. He has defaulted to the idea that human nature is simply what it is, and that there is no hope of ever changing that—the failings of the 1960s have proven that. This form of self-alienating cynicism was to become a key characteristic of both the Baby Boom generation and Generation X.
These characters are applicable well beyond the specific context in which they were created. They can easily be applied today, as we are living through dark times and are staring down an even bleaker, perhaps unimaginable, future. So, too, can we still seriously ponder the questions asked in “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
We live in an age of climate crisis, accelerating technological advancement, stockpiled nuclear weaponry, upward wealth distribution, book bannings, global pandemic, mass shootings, terrorism—etc, etc, etc. As if a steady stream of dystopia and apocalypse weren’t bad enough, an increasingly “connected” global populace stands idle as their sense of control and agency continuously evaporates. And when our institutions and leaders aren’t actively inflaming our crises, they provide precious little solace at best.
Surely, “there must be some way out of here,” right?
In some ways, the young Dylan was not wrong about finding answers in the wind. It is always blowing and carries with it essential truths. The problem, as the joker discovers, is that the wind can go unheeded, and the results of that are catastrophic. This is not mere metaphor: the storm clouds are here, and they are heavy. An essential and universal force, the wind ultimately cannot be avoided—the longer we idly ignore the strong currents and carry on with the status quo, the closer we come to the ruin faced by those in the Watchtower.
Toby Jaffe is a writer from Philadelphia published in the New Republic, the American Prospect, Paste Magazine, and elsewhere.
